Staff Review With Todd Levin

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2:05hey welcome to a thursday episode of conan o 'brien needs a friend usually these are fan episodes but we've been mixing it up a little bit recently i'll tell you why getting ready for the oscars and I have my A-plus elite writing staff downstairs in the building working hard on concepts, riddles, quizzes, recipes for the Oscars. And I am very fortunate. I'll just come out and say it. I work with the best writers in the world. And one of them, I want to come up and hang with them. We did this with Brian Kiley a couple of days ago. And now we're going to do it with Mr. Todd Levin about as sharp a writer as you will find.

2:48You really are. That's really nice. You're crazily talented, and I'm so glad that you're helping me with the Oscars. And we've, I think you joined me, did you say it was 2009 was when you came on board? 2009, just as you were wrapping up late night in New York. I was wrapping up late night, and I was headed to take over the Tonight Show for a 30-year run. We had jobs for life. You said, I remember I hired you and you said, you know, Tonight Show hosts last forever. Yeah. And you said, count me in. And you started spending money like crazy. Oh, yeah. Most of it was spent before you even got to California.

3:27Yeah. Yeah. He showed up and the first day he got, he said, I'm buying a Bentley. Oh. Yeah. And he got a license plate that said, Tonight Show for Life. And I said, I looked it up. It was way too many characters for a license plate. It wasn't even legal. It was actually Tonight Show for Life 3 because two other people had gotten the same benefit plate. Two other writers for my Tonight Show. Yeah, so you were with me for the end of Late Night, Tonight Show, then the TBS thing, and now Oscars, and yeah. So you will be my writer for life, whether you want to be or not. Happy to be. um so i'm just let's get into this a little bit because there are different types of writers there are the kinds that that chatter constantly i i'm sorry to say i was one of those what oh my god doing bits in the room and uh dancing around like a chimp a chimp on crack and then um todd you're that i call you you're like a ninja an assassin you you're quiet you're taking things in and then you'll say something that's really hilarious and you'll write something that's really great, but there's not a lot of, you know, uh, babbling and Hey, look at me, which I really admire.

4:45It's not demonstrative because I believe in my work. Oh, wow. I am very much like a bad musician and I'm also a bad musician, but I'm a bad magician trying to distract you. I'm like, Whoa, look at this. And then, cause I'm afraid someone will really look and see if there's not a lot of protein here. I think it's awesome just because I've never been uncomfortable with that part of like performing stuff. Even when I was doing standup, I was the guy who just hugged the microphone. I just held it dear to me and I wasn't like a big act out guy. You'd often try and leave with it. Yeah, exactly. Todd, you've got to keep that here.

5:24Come back with the mic. Well, tell me about your journey a little bit because this happens so often. I work with these really talented people and I get to know them, we're in the trenches together. And I think, hey, I don't really know your origin story, but when did you know, oh, comedy is for me? I mean, I think I always knew it as a kid, but I didn't know. I think you probably hear this a lot. And I think a lot of people who are in comedy say this, but I didn't know it was a career. You know, I didn't grow up in that kind of environment. You know, my parents were both state workers in Albany, New York.

5:55And I, so I loved comedy as a kid. And my dad was really instrumental in that because my dad had my parents had a terrible record collection they had very they had like a couple john denvers a couple barbara streisands right but then my dad also had david saying what's wrong with that sounds great to me not much i love your parents when can i come over david settle down but my dad had uh bob newhart records as well so he had He was my introduction to comedy, so I would listen to his records all the time. He had Cosby records, too. You could say that. But those were also a huge influence on me.

6:39Huge, yeah. Yeah, and then my dad also had this rule, like we had this really strict bedtime, but we had HBO when I was growing up, and if there was a funny movie on at 9 o 'clock, he would let me stay up to watch it with him. So I'd watch a lot of comedies with my dad. Everything you're saying resonates completely with me because my parents had nothing to do with show business. I'm growing up just outside Boston. I, you know, show business is this thing that exists on Jupiter and it's done by aliens. But my father was very interested in comedy. He was a infectious disease scientist, doctor. And he but he loved comedy.

7:21He loved New Heart. We had those records. They also had a terrible record. I mean, like no records. But he loved comedy. And when a movie like Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World would come on once a year, we weren't allowed to watch TV at night if it was a school night, if we had school the next day. But he would say when this comedy came on, he would say we could all watch it. And I mean, this was unheard of. But that was sacrosanct. If there was a really good classic comedy, we could watch that. So, and I think Newhart, I mean, what a great person to learn from because the jokes and the concept, it's about jokes and concepts.

8:06He's like a matador. He didn't move that much. It's, you know, it's all the power of the joke and a stillness to it. Yes, for sure. And a musical ear. Yeah. Yeah. I loved him. Yeah. So my dad turned me on to Monty Python, to SNL, all those things. So I was really into it as a kid. and like, you know, had no idea that it could be a thing you could do for a living. And then when I moved to New York, which is just a place I knew that I wanted to be in New York eventually, I didn't know what I wanted to do there. I just knew I needed to be in New York eventually. And then when I got there, I just gravitated toward people who were doing improv and doing standup.

8:42And I don't even know how or why I befriended these people, but I started to kind of get in with that world and people, my friend were just encouraging me to get out on stage and just do stuff. that's great yeah so in the beginning i wasn't even my the beginning of my stand-up career was me reading bits it was very much like a new heart thing where i was just i would prepare a written bit that depended on the page because i was so scared and i just was like i need the words to be perfect so i would structure it like well i got these letters uh in the mail and you know i thought i'd share them with you or these i found these old diary entries so something that was sort of it had to be read and then as i continued to do it i just got more comfortable being in front of people and being spontaneous and the pages started drifting away.

9:25But you have to find a special place to do that because yes, you can't go to a club. There are comedy clubs where it's very confrontational and you have to almost fight them to prove that you're funny, which is, you know, can breed a certain kind of style. And then there are places you can go that are more open to experimentation. A hundred percent. Uh, and so where were you finding those places? So in New York, that was, there was a place called Rafifi, which was in the back of a, it was like, they, they showed movies there and there was also like burlesque nights. It was a really weird place.

10:02There was a bar in the front and a little theater in the back. And there was a big kind of thriving alternative scene there. So I would do shows there, uh, UCB places like that. Um, there's a place called Luna lounge that had a very famous like alternative show on Monday nights. Marin kind of ruled the roost there. And he was, he was at an older, kind of a generation of comics before me. Yeah. Yeah. So there were all these little rooms you could do that. And then once you got comfortable, there still was an expectation that you do clubs. I never really wanted to do clubs, but if you're doing, if you're trying to get into a festival or get on TV, then you kind of have to be in clubs and you have, and it is, it's different.

10:41It's like, I have to make you like me. Yeah. Whereas in the alternative rooms, you're kind of like, Like, well, this will make you like I this the words I'm saying will hopefully make you like me. But like you have to be this person that's approachable and it it can be combative. But it's just it's more of like a struggle. Like I have to make these idiots like me. You just mud brain. You morons. How are you morons tonight? You working class scum. Hey, why the crowd wasn't that good tonight? Yeah, they were. They were really good until you screamed at them. In your wool suit. You dropped your horn-rimmed glasses at one point.

11:23I waved a newspaper at them. Don't you idiots read? Yeah, everyone has to find their own way. And you do that. And then did you do TV jobs before you came to me? This was my first TV job. So I had been doing pretty well as a stand-up. and I'd gotten like a TV gig just performing and I got an agent through that. But as soon as I got an agent, I said, I want to write. Like, that's what I want to do. Like, you know, I like stand up, but I love writing. And this late night was my first TV job. And I almost didn't take it because I thought, well, shouldn't I have a job on a worse show first? Like I had that, that's my own like, you know, insecurity and growing up in this kind of like working middle-class family.

12:10I was like, shouldn't I have started on something smaller? Because I was such a huge fan of the show when I got hired that I almost didn't take it. And then the week that, that week I got. You got the job and you were like, hey, this show isn't that good. I think I'll be just fine. I don't know what all the fuss is all about. I think Conan's on pills. But yeah, I, so I, that I had gotten a job on another TV show, VH1 TV show that same week. and the, and I was, I almost took that job. And then I got a call from Sweeney about this show. Yeah. And yeah, it was crazy. I'd love it if you had turned us down and worked on ridiculousness.

12:52I know. I would be rich. Picking the clips of people in bikinis falling down. I would be rich beyond my wildest dreams. You'd be so rich. You'd refuse to come on this podcast now. I'm not talking to him. How much does this pay? Yeah. So talk to me about some of the bits that you, like your experience working on the show, what were some of the bits that you got on early days or just in general that you were really proud of? Well, I would say the first thing that I got on that, well, there are a couple of things, like there are a couple of things, Erland, that I liked, but the first thing that I got on that I was really proud of that really kind of broke through was Minty.

13:31Yes. Minty the candy cane. Oh my God, I love Minty. And that was like, it just made people happy. Oh, it was so. And it made me happy. Great. Now refresh us. Take us through the, Minty is a candy cane, but not any candy cane. And he's played by McCann. He's played by Brian McCann. I had, basically, I had so much insurance for that bit though, because I had Brian McCann, who is an incredible performer. Such a great performer. Playing this candy cane that had fallen, the idea is that he had fallen on the ground briefly. Briefly. Briefly. He briefly fell on the ground. So he had a few things stuck to him, like a cigarette butt and a penny.

14:04And then the song was, can you do the song? I'm trying to remember it. Minty the candy cane who briefly fell on the ground. And it was done in that kind of old timey. Minty fell on the ground. Oh, Minty fell on the ground. Now he's covered in goo. Now he's covered in goo. Oh my God. But like, so McCann played him, Stack sang, Brian Stack, also an amazing performer, sang the song and Jimmy Vivino arranged it. I can't sing. It's a great song. And of course, near and dear to my heart, because my favorite era of singing is about 1914. Megaphone singing. Megaphone singing. Oh, and you know, and it was great.

14:47He had just the perfect thing stuck to him. And immediately people loved him. I loved him. I would always dance along with Minty. I think Mindy threw things at people. He threw, he had a little basket of candy canes that he passed out in the audience. And then he would whip them at me. He would violently whip them at you. And quick shout out to Brian McCann, who I got to get in here at some point, because he played, he was such a, that early, early late night show, he was on and would just play these hilarious characters that really helped us put our stamp on the kind of humor we liked. And one of my favorites was the man with bulletproof legs.

15:23So good. And McCann would come out wearing super short shorts and an incredibly self-satisfied expression. And he would sing a song about how you can't hurt me because I've got bulletproof legs. Yes, I've got bulletproof legs. You can't. And then blam, he'd get shot in the chest and collapse and die. And it was one of my favorite things because he would make his legs elongate. Yeah, he was like, almost do this kind of beautiful swan walk. Yes, he'd do this long-legged swan walk bragging about how his legs were bulletproof and then he'd get shot in the chest. And it just delighted me. And that's one of maybe 10 ,000 things McCann did for us.

16:12What do you got there, Eduardo? You want me to play it? Yeah, if you want to see one of these Minty sketches come to life, go on the Team Coco channel. Look up Mindy the candy cane. Come on, let's hear him. Happy holidays, everyone! The voice he chose. Yeah.

16:40That's it. Just a moment or two. That's it. You know, my favorite was, Mindy's covered in goo. And it says goo. Yeah. That made me so happy.

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20:09Oh, another early thing. I don't want to talk about this that much, but was the Human Centipede Menorah. Yes. Which was, that was like, it might've been the same year. Human Centipede had just come out, which was one of the most horrifying, and still remains one of the most horrifying movies of all time. Sona made me watch it on the tour bus. I did. Oh, really? Yeah. I've never seen it. I won't watch it. And it buffered a lot, so it took us four hours to watch it. Yeah, yeah. It was really, really not worth it. It was a labor of love. And so, yeah, human centipede menorah. So did this get you tossed out of any religious affiliations?

20:49Well, the two things I remember about it were that like Patton Oswalt had tweeted something about how horrifying it was. And I was like, if that got him, that's good. If this horrifies Patton Oswalt and got him not sleeping, then we know we're in the right territory. And then the other thing was that we did it multiple years. And for some reason, they always, I guess because the costumes fit, they always tried to hire back the same nine guys. And except for like one of them, they all came back. It was like a, like they had Stockholm syndrome. Yeah. The one that didn't come back, Timothee Chalamet.

21:25He just, you know, and he won't acknowledge it anymore. No, no, he doesn't talk about it. He doesn't talk about it. But it was crazy because those guys would, they all stayed in touch with each other. It was like a shared trauma. And they all kept in touch. And I - If you want to see the human centipede menorah, go on the Team Coco site. And then don't look at the clip because it was horrifying. It's so horrifying. And it's everything you think it is. Yeah. Yes. Wow. So - But I like to do, that was a thing that I think that I would go back to a lot, which was take something monstrous and make people have to celebrate it.

22:00Yes, that's true. Or take something sweet and make it monstrous. which like wiki bear was like a sweet thing that stack and i wrote that was like you love it when you see it and his voice is cute but he's a monster yeah what was it was it what was wiki bear was when i would uh take the it was like the um the bear that they were selling yeah there's a real bear that they were selling that you could ask it questions and yeah it's based on a real thing there was a bear that could connect to the internet could connect to the internet it was like obsessed with murder wasn't it constantly the wiki bear was always giving anecdotes not anecdotes but like stories it would give you facts you would ask it very innocent questions it would answer them and then pivot off the question to something absolutely give me an example trying to remember i know like uh so you would ask it like it was always because it was a cute kid's toy so i was saying hey wiki bear how are you you know and then it would i'm fine conan and then it would pivot off that really quickly Speaking of blah, blah, blah.

23:00Ed Gein made lampshades out of human skin. And I'd be like, Winky Bear. Speaking of bright ideas. Yeah, it would be like something like that. Yeah. He was a clever fella. I think one of the reasons you fit in so nicely is that I think my whole life, so many bits were me trying to be the innocent talk show host who was doing something sweet. Yes. It's almost like we didn't have rehearsal. If you follow that logic. I'm going to try out this wiki bear. Hey, wiki bear. And, and then I'd be trying to be like, okay, well, let's just move it along wiki bear. Did you know that the second night of the Manson murders, they, you know, and I'm like, Hey, hold on a second wiki bear.

23:41But if you look through it, that's a theme that runs through the entire show for years and years and years, any version of it is trying to put on a nice show and I don't understand what's going on here. But that was a bit that you helped a lot actually because the original draft was like kind of it was i don't think it was unfunny but it wasn't focused and then when we were doing in rehearsal because the bear would move like they could control its mouth so it could always move and stack was in the voiceover booth and you guys just started talking about the manson family it just became a funny thing at rehearsal and then stack and i kind of locked into that we're like that's what the bit is yeah you have to find it sometimes it's it changed the whole thing and it was so what surprised you, you went from watching the show to then working on it.

24:27What are some of the things that, that struck you as, oh, this is different or, I mean, what were your impressions? Well, the, the thing that I'll tell you a thing that terrified me at first, but then became my favorite thing about the show was that the writers have a lot of autonomy and that you're kind of expected to not just write your bits, but to produce them. And in a sense, direct them as well. And you're working with the editors and you're working with all the departments. And in the beginning when you, if you've never done that before, it's so scary because you're like, there's a thousand ways to mess this up and you know, a couple of ways to get it right.

25:00And then that is something I learned from Lorne Michaels. When I went to work on Saturday night live with Greg Daniels, um, it was, I mean, it stunned us. I mean, I was, I don't know, 23, maybe, or 24. And suddenly, yeah, it would have been 24, I think. But, um, you know, And we pitched a sketch. They said, you know, I did well at read-through. And the next thing you know, you're talking to set designers, wardrobe people. You're telling them, you know, Lauren would say to me, what kind of restaurant is this? And I'd be like, I don't know. I just get pizza at the corner, around the corner. I get a slice.