RE-RELEASE - Robert Smigel

26:11Dana Carvey:Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was sadly a little closer to John. I was like, Robert, you have no poker face. Lauren, I remember him telling me there were people like me. I didn't really make big stinks, though, but I was, you know, imitating Lauren behind his back like everybody. Eventually. Now, everybody I'm told I'm told you go to show now. Everybody does. Lauren literally literally everyone. They all you've seen this. Have you witnessed this? well that's what i heard james austin johnson had a good one you know and oh yeah yeah bill hater of course any reason but i think people they say that people just do it around the office oh just around each other uh read through is going to start everyone get to their seat you know and that's like a first yeah right but what i loved about dana was that he had he just came in he had a list of impressions that he like handed out to the writers like he wasn't he didn't pretend that he was above doing that.

27:10Which was like so refreshing to actually admit that you care. Not being like cutthroat or anything. He was just being straightforward.

27:20Dana Carvey:I just thought it made sense. I was able to do a bunch of voices. I thought, well, let the writers know because I realize you guys are just writing sketches and if someone sees Casey Kasem or something, maybe they'd put him in. I don't know. Of course. That's the best way to do it. Here you go. Here you go, Jack Handy. Here you go, Odenkirk. Here you go, Conan. The first thing, Robert, you approached me with was Robin Leach doing some kind of Japanese pruning or origami I don't know why I don't remember yeah because you'd seen his name on the list but I had a catchphrase for that one I'm Robin Leach I'm yelling and I don't know why so I had that I loved Robin Leach but then it was Robin Leach for everyone under 70 but Robin Leach was such a lifestyle another one of the celebrity that is no longer with us one of my impressions you know Dino Stepanopoulos who our listeners might know every time someone I do an impression of passes away he texts me another one another one down whether it's Regis or Bush you're gonna kill in heaven Dana someday yeah yeah I didn't know Dino did that I thought Robin Leach was so hilarious and he had a great hook for it I don't know why no everything Dana I thought danis travolta was hysterical because it was so it was so not what travolta sounded like in the 80s anymore no it's just like he's basically doing an exaggerated um welcome back cotter welcome back cotter for everyone listening if you want to do a john travolta just say the word weird is slack so weird slack weird weird is the entry to that but slack but also slack so what's that what's that well it's like dana would say slack so weird it's so it's like so weird you know everybody should that's like we very much connected because we liked and doing we like doing impressions that were kind of abstract we like creating abstract impressions and so you know dana had some under his belt obviously and then i tried to help him with, you know, Johnny Carson and Regis.

29:27The Regis thing was very strange because like I wrote it for Phil Hartman. I wrote it for Phil Hartman and it went to dress. Really? It didn't do great. And then Dana in his gentlest non cutthroat way just happened upon me like a week later and was like, you know, Regis is kind of small and Irish. And like I had just had a total blank. I had just picked Phil because he was the oldest cast member. Yeah. And I thought of him as just, okay, he's the old guy comparatively. But Dana was absolutely right. He looked more like Regis, and then he started doing him.

30:02Dana Carvey:Well, I didn't realize when I started watching him in New York, he had essentially just got on nationally. But we would get up around nine, Paula and I, and we would watch it, and we just fell in love with him. Oh, yeah. The most charming guy in the world. And then getting to know you, yeah, just hanging out in your office, and we started bouncing off, are you ready for this? You better control. oh, this guy's crazy. And you got all the, I think one of your things, very Robert Smigel is something about, you know, I'm down at the Shriders and I'm behind Brokaw. I can't get a seat, you know. So we bonded over all that.

30:33Dana Carvey:It was that thing of like the explosion. This was something that he really did on the show. And then Brokaw's got the front row seat and I'm sitting with, you know, Patrick Swayze in the back. Anyway, it was a great event. And he takes a sip of his coffee. Anyway, it was terrific. It's like he's got nothing else. so he just yeah joy was there joy anyway we wish them well yeah when joy hosted that was always uh regis was uh but you can't let dana around an impression he comes circling it's like all right just give it to him he's gonna figure it out and then his when he wrote his book they said we want to call it i'm out of control and he had to go out you know honest he never said i'm out of control that was something that dana made up but i don't understand dana garney but um the you know one So we had, you know, and then Carson came around and just I started playing around with it.

31:27I think the Turners actually had written a Carson sketch. Did they? And I looked at it. You showed it to me. And I had just a couple of moves in my head. And then it sort of brought out some moves that you had. Like the thing that. I love Johnny Carson so much. He was like incredible voice in the 70s when I was a teenager growing up. I used to watch him constantly and yeah he was so charismatic and he's still the greatest ever but there was then Letterman came on like the early 80s and it immediately got some you know the anti-top show or whatever you want to call that well he was like reinventing everything and then Johnny for no good reason started feeling insecure about it you could see it on the show because he started trying to do things that letterman was doing but he didn't know how to do it the way letterman did letterman would just let them happen johnny would be like we're about to do something that's a little weird this is a little different this is not not the norm that's right yeah you know that was one over we're gonna take a camera and it's gonna follow me i can't do him as well as you did but it was like just obviously clench your jaw yeah i'm gonna clench your jaw thank you the camera is gonna follow me and it's gonna walk out of the studio and i'm gonna go to another set it's like okay ask we already know unusual questions to people unusual questions that people are not gonna know is even they don't know what's gonna happen all right so let's start doing it now i'm walking you see i'm walking across and this is a thing you were witnessing a bit it's a little weird and so that was i was giving him this a little weird and then dina had this expression he had a couple of things like when johnny like calls people over to the comedians the funny stuff funny that was funny stuff and then you had weird wild that weird wild stuff and for those of you at home you're watching a thing called a

33:28Dana Carvey:television you know how you would bring so then it became that where we just did the overly set up johnny carson thing and then it was so dry it was maybe the driest thing you ever did on the show dana and then but it always ed mcmahon's ed mcmahon's rhythmically kind of uh yes acknowledging it and uh you know giving it like just like yes you are correct sir would always make it work it was like the fact that you would say these strange things and then ed would kind of affirm them yeah he was the release button because but that was the first time and i've said this before but when i was on snl and wasn't concerned with the laughs i just was having so much fun being johnny and when i got the wig on i am irish carson carvey my eyes are a little close together and i i go god i kind of look like him you know and then i could just look in the mirror and just uh just get into that attitude of being just this yes whatever that weren't you going to hair and makeup too it's just that really sent you up and um then the the third rail of the ones that really had a lot of episodes carson did carcinio we could talk about that too regis had a lot of i'd love to talk about carcinio anyway well carcinio let's let's do that now because that was the extension of the carson impression we did this we did one before that that actually did piss johnny off and and then they i don't know i don't know if they asked you to do that late night history show but they asked me so i did it and i talked about it and then they edited it to make it look like we didn't really give a shit how johnny felt responded to it and we did we were really upset about it like we did this sketch where arsenio so chris rock gets hired in like 1990 and um plays arsenio hall yeah which he didn't do like i remember i that's another guy i got to see audition and he was hysterical and like obviously you know incredible obvious hire but i remember asking lauren does it matter he doesn't seem to be an impressionist here to do our shinio don't worry about uh chris he's got the hair and he can do our sinio just remember it's like black guys on the show always have the burden of having to do like every black person yes we We talked about that with Chris.

35:52Yeah.

35:52Dana Carvey:Oh, you did? A little bit. I think Dave brought it up. Yeah. It is tough because everything just gets assigned and no matter, you know, if it's even close. Okay, Chris, you're doing Al Roker this week. Yeah. Show is diverse now. I played an Asian character. I played Tony Montana as like a Cuban character. You know, I had a bigger, you know, range. I wonder if you could write that, Robert, today is like, can you write anyone to play anything but they are what they are i don't know how they do it there i wonder if they have meetings and go could i play this or oh at snl yeah at snl well they definitely let women play men men yeah they still let that happen no i know it's it's it's it's interesting because like even like something like i mean i totally blackface thing is obviously a red flag and it's oddly it's something we didn't do in our era and then it started happening at all yeah the 90s were a strange time where it seemed like the floodgates opened and people were doing exceptionally rude stuff i don't know if it's because cable was starting and the networks felt the need to compete but you try too hard and you go in different directions that are sometimes wrong directions you just don't know and then yeah it levels out yeah but like i just did this puppet show that failed whatever like and we had this guy who was going to do obama and he had done obama on the conan show for like three or four years and he just sounded exactly like obama so i wanted to hire him and then i found out that he was white i didn't realize i had no idea i just knew he sounded exactly like obama and they said you can't hire him do they ever call you now uh smile to uh write or help or come off the bench and, uh, no, I was there when Adam, no, they never call me.

37:45They don't. They, um, although I actually sent Colin Jost an idea this week and didn't, didn't hear back. Didn't hear back. No, it was an Anna Wintour idea. I thought, don't, don't try to give him my Racky Pete. That's Adams. Actually, you would be great for this Anna Wintour idea. Is that me playing him or Dana? No, I'm talking about Spade. It's, It's a very, it's a very spade. Spade could own that. Spade playing Anna Wintour. The idea was that she, it was like an update feature where Anna Wintour is sitting next to somebody like, who's the guy? Jared Leto. He's always wearing something insane.

38:29They just had the Met Gala. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

38:31Dana Carvey:Jared Leto. Yeah. He's got great. And then it was just going to be on a Wintour very quietly and dryly and very stiff uh insulting you know um michael chase outfit michael chase suit you know like uh is this a fundraiser for victims of fashion and then like um you know and then she turns to colin jost is like you know is that a suit or are you being humped by a couch and then she starts getting rim shots and just starts walking into the crowd and start Walking around Yeah, walking around the 8th floor That's funny, he stands up and starts Doing crowd work She's completely stiff, you know And it's just, if that time was any louder Molly Matlin could hear it Looks like Joseph A.

39:23Bank made it tonight

39:25Dana Carvey:What if Triumph was at the Met Gala? Yeah, what would he do? He'd be crazy Actually, I've tried to I've wanted to do the red carpet That's perfect for Triumph things i've i still want to do as please don't let triumph around kim k well she lost 16 now i have like these personal relationships that i care about like i would never touch her because pete davidson's a friend oh friend of the show no i he's a great guy i know him and but like dana this is something well we never talked about the carson thing but this is another one that's all right i don't know if you want to talk about this but i'll talk about anything we're 30 or i'm 30 or 32 or whatever you were and dennis gets bounced from his syndicated show yeah and i have this idea to do dennis is now doing a cooking show right which we we called dennis and he said go ahead right you did call him i thought that i did maybe you called him i didn't call him yeah but i still believe i called him yeah i don't think we but that was like then and i and i thought in my head i was like this is my duty as a saturday night live sketch writer i can't play favorites you know i i this is my privilege to duty comes first yeah that's how i seriously i took it and now it's to the show i would say by like the time i was 40 i was like no i would never do that again yeah well i don't think at that point there was any sort of uh idea that Dennis wasn't on his way with a career like he'd done the black and white special he had the talk show you know all he did after that was host an HBO show that got like 20 exactly so to me to me I thought it was so funny and the way you wrote it Dennis's vernacular yeah in a daytime cooking show I don't know if you could quote some of that maybe maybe you're right but I feel like I still wouldn't do it now.

41:23I wouldn't be able to. I'd be too nervous about whoever's feelings it was. Sure. I understand that.

41:29Dana Carvey:I feel the same way. I kind of sometimes feel bad for Biden when I see him sort of lost or whatever. And so it's different doing it now. It's weird when you get older and life kind of kicks you in the nuts and you learn what pain is. And yeah, you get more. You know how careers are so hard and up and down. and you're like i'm gonna probably hurt someone's career somehow accidentally you know who would always hair looks like a spider web go ahead the one person who would always scold me when i was even when i was younger and i guess it's because he was sensitive to all the bad reviews he was getting was sandler he was like like i was doing those cartoons and they were going really well yeah yeah you know when i would do a cartoon about like david brenner or something yes being a guest on a talk show and it was fun with real audio and i would use a real david brenner story but i would have him going on every talk show and each host would get bored and press a trap door button and he would fall down and go like you know so he starts on like the tonight show and then trap door goes down to conan and then it goes down to like tom snyder and then hilarious i remember that one yeah yeah and it was really funny and everybody i played it for conan because conan was in it and he was laughing really hard and then i get a call from sandley you feel good about yourself but you feel good about that no guy that what if that guy's home watching you know he's like had a hard day and he's watching the show and he's like yeah what is this why what did i do yeah why well he did brenner didn't he sandler could do brenner on the show he did a great david brenner that's right but it wasn't nearly as mean as this cartoon no it wasn't mean it wasn't remember the one you did You had Stedman hiding from Oprah in the mansion.

43:13Dana Carvey:That was, that was from the comedy central show. And it's interesting. You bring that up because that was a cartoon I wasn't going to do. It was one of those lines that I would draw for myself, which people are always shocked. You had. You have lines. I did, but I like, I didn't like to make fun of drug addiction. I always felt like when people are, you know, that desperate. It's not funny. You know, it's like, you know, everybody it's easy to reduce somebody to a cartoon character. But that was one. And another one was women's looks. I really hated making fun of a woman for her looks because women are held up to these ridiculous standards.

43:58And it just felt shitty. And so this Oprah one was Andy Breckman's premise. And the premise was that Stedman, every time Oprah wants to have sex, Stedman has convinced Oprah that he's an international spy. And every time Oprah wants to have sex, Stedman pretends he's getting an alert and he has to go off. I'm not making it sound as funny as it. No, no. It was so funny. I like it. I broke the rule because it was just too funny. And it, it remains like one of the funniest cartoons I've ever been involved in. But it was Andy Breckman's idea. Also one of the nicest people I've ever worked with Andy Breckman.

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47:34Ask him about the Bears. The Bears is a big one. Ask about the Bears.

47:38Dana Carvey:I just want to say very quickly that I know that John McLaughlin, which you completely created. I love McLaughlin. loved loved our sketch oh yeah regis loved it perot loved it george bush senior loved it yes it was only sweet johnny carson got a little tweaked and i don't blame carson we should talk about this one because it was like uh so yes so rock comes on i got i'm sorry carcinio rock comes on and plays arsenio rock comes on and plays arsenio and this was at this time when johnny was getting sort of threatened by arsenio's presence arsenio was white hot that's a bad choice of words i suppose but arsenio was like please stand on fire every everybody was talking about him and we did that thing of like now i understand that this you know that would over explaining thing but in this case it was like i understand you have a show dana you should do it you remember i understand you have a show and um it's um and it says here he was like looking at his notes it says here that your show is up against my show yes and i said it says here i did not know that and your ratings have actually gone up higher than mine and mine are starting to decline right it's weird i did not know that and now it says here it says further that your show is considered hip and mine i am starting to be considered out of touch yeah i didn't know did you know that yes yes sir yeah a really sad yes yes but but the thing that johnny got maddest at dana do you remember this it was the first guest we had a throwaway first guest before we bring on arsenio it was susan day right it was susan day and i had written it for sinead o 'connor for jan hooks to play sinead because she had already done it and it was hilarious and um she's very serious and you know you guys are just would be doing not a not a lot of hair on her head that's just that is that is quite a boom you know all that kind of stuff a little smooth on the upper turf yeah okay not a hairy woman sir from ear to ear not a lot going on lauren was like uh you know she's done sinead she does a killer susan day which she had done once on the show and it was killer so lord suggested lord suggested it wasn't like it wasn't funny he suggested what if he has susan day on but he keeps wanting to talk about the partridge family and it had been 15 years since it'd gone off yeah yes and so that was how we wrote it and then johnny took it as like are you seeing this ed he really he said this on the show they're saying i'm senile he literally thought we were now calling him senile all because we had changed that opening that was the one that i thought was yeah yeah he said it on he said it as dana or no no no johnny said it on his own show he started wow wow about saturday night live on his own show and dana i heard you say this to regis and it broke my heart because i had never heard this you said to regis in an interview like i don't know five six years ago i saw you said that you heard that johnny said when they start making fun of you it's time to go away well he would say it yet over in burbank because in the hallway the big giant studio and just yell it out they're making fun of me now it's time to go yeah that that but what i I realize, and I would take it for anyone in show business, that eventually you become a caricature of yourself.

51:28Dana Carvey:If you're a comedian, it doesn't matter. I don't want to name the person. You could see someone and kind of go, is that a celebrity impersonator or is that the real guy? So you do become a caricature of yourself. It's kind of flattering, but for Johnny, I couldn't get on the show after that. I know. Nobody from SNL did for a year. And he really took it to heart. And so that was heartbreaking for us. But then, then I think I also heard from you back then. So then we did the Carcinio sketch, which was basically Johnny as trying to be like Arsenio, trying to be like Arsenio hall with an afro. It was a big hit sketch.

52:06He had the pointy hair and elongated fingers. Yeah. And he would, did you see this head? All you have to do is go whoop, whoop, whoop. And the audience goes, whoop, whoop, whoop.

52:16Dana Carvey:Do you know that a house is called a crib bed? did you know that yeah yeah you know robert i did carson two months before he quit as stand-up oh wow and he came back to the back and he goes who hates dana carvey i go i do and he goes that's my boy really no no he didn't he came back and said hi to me but i remember it was very odd to get on the show i did do it two months before he got off and he did come back but he came back and You were on Saturday Night Live. He waved. You broke the code. No, I think. Was I on? He went off in 93, I believe. You were absolutely on the show, Dan. Yeah, okay.

52:54Okay, for sure. But let me just say this real quick. Carvey told me that he liked the Carcinio sketch. Yes. He said, what did he say? It makes fun of both of us?

53:05Dana Carvey:He said, you know, they're making fun of Arsenio as much as they're making fun of me. I mean, that's funny stuff. You know, that kind of thing. So I remember feeling a lot better about. And then he did start letting people on the show again. No. I mean, I was saying I got on somehow and I don't know, just did my crummy act and got out of there. Stop it. He did. He waved me over, Smig. That's amazing. And I left. I didn't go. You gave him the finger? Well, the guy backstage, Macaulay, said, he goes, get on there, hit your mark and get off. And I go, what if Johnny waves you over? And he goes, he won't.

53:42Just go do it. and i go oh my god so i went out and turned and left and he goes there he is and what did the little double tap and the wink he goes martin short was with him and he goes have him come over and he goes i'm trying to but he won't look at me and he goes he's too nervous all right there he goes all right well that was david's fate he said that on the air yeah that's amazing and then he came backstage where were you uh and i was there with egg i had my shirt off you made a fucking fools yeah and it was a bo fucking torrential storm back in my room because i was so scared i have my shirt off and i have pepto-bismol and they knock and i open it it's ed i think doc and johnny and he goes uh all three of them i didn't yeah he goes i didn't he goes i didn't get a chance to say good job i wanted to come over and nice job and i go oh i didn't even see you or whatever and he goes pepto-bismol i'm trying to quit the stuff myself and then he walked away isn't that great it's a fantastic story he did a bit he did a bit but in in reality he was um he was broken inside and he went around the office and said when they start not not coming over to the couch who put you up for this dana carvey that fuck

54:59Dana Carvey:so it's you spade yeah you're the one who pushed him out let's go let's go ahead and let's go back I can find him. John, come on. I'll hit him high. You hit him low. Hit him low. Well, talk about McLaughlin, too, because that was a great McLaughlin group. John McLaughlin ran a roundtable. Well, we got to let everyone know you did McLaughlin. You did the Bears. So many. You did Clucky fucking GaGaGooey. Hey, what did you help me with? You helped me with the Clucky or Schmitz Gay? You helped me with one of those, too. I was almost in Schmitz Gay for a rough draft, and then it went to Sandler and Farley.

55:37I know. It went to Farley. That was Downey's idea and it was a brilliant call to take the two youngest guys in the cast and make them the guys. That was - What was I? Was I older than them? Originally, I had it as Dana and Kevin because I thought this was going to be the first sketch of the year and Dana and Kevin are the guys and then I don't remember a draft with you. I remember in St. Farley. No, someone, maybe Shoemaker or someone said, I think you're in this thing. Remind me what this sketch is.

56:02Dana Carvey:Schmidt's gay? Oh, Schmitz Gay. That became a film, didn't it? That was a big one. Yeah, yeah. No, no. You're thinking of the ambiguously gay duo? No, I was thinking of Sandler and Farley did something by a pool. Yeah, with Van Halen. It was a parody of all those sexist beer commercials. It's one of the ones I'm most proud of. Oh, it's great. Hysterical, but that ended up being Sandler and Farley. I also like that the gay people weren't portrayed in any kind of mocking way. The whole joke was turning the tables on these ridiculous commercials that associate beer with objectifying women. And it just got this huge, it got one of the biggest responses.

56:48Oh, it was so great. It was a good Van Halen song in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Farley and Sandler doing the conga line. Yeah, it was amazing. But Spade, I thought you either helped me with that or Cluckin' Chicken, which is my personal favorite. Oh, clucking chicken. I don't know. I mean, sometimes I just get in there and try to help anywhere I could. I think you threw me some jokes in there. Maybe I threw you Gaga got gooey. That sounded like me. The Gaga got gooey. God, how's the me? Oh, I love Sandler's voice. And that was so funny. That was a cartoon. That was half cartoon commercial parody.

57:24Yeah. Cartoon. Yes. Cartoon super. That's how I met the guy, J.J. Settelmeyer, who ended up doing the first few years of the TV Funhouse cartoons. Hey, hey, hey, hey, Funhouse. Welcome back to my show. But you put Lauren's voice in there. Did anyone say anything? That's maybe the hardest I've ever laughed in my life because I became a 10-year-old again. Like the way I would, when I was 10, I would draw cartoons of my teachers, that kind of thing. Yeah. And when a teacher would see, I would like giggle like, and I remember the first time you saw the dress rehearsal that the ambiguously gay duo ran.

58:03And, and then this little cartoon Lauren comes out and chases the dog, Lego my show, Lego my show. And I'm watching Lauren watch it. Oh my God. And I'm just in tears. I was like, you know, Lauren would call it, you put a beanie on the balls. what is that it's just made fun of the boss or a beanie on the bus it's like reducing the boss to a you know yeah lower status it's like you know lauren had a term for every comedy move in the world totally i've seen every sketch four times you know so it's hard for me everything you've anyone's written i've seen a version of it in one of my favorite recent lauren ones within the last

58:47Dana Carvey:five years around funny people people do comedy there's only 900 of us on the planet oh really yeah it's a specific number like well maybe that's true i don't know we did run some numbers it's down to 898 yes if you don't count steve and marty steve counts for three marty he counts for a hundred i think uh robert we asked them good didn't we ask uh william shatner if he was okay with that sketch you wrote? I think he was, right? Oh, yeah. I pitched it to him. And he liked it. The Trekkie sketch. Yeah, that was a big famous sketch that you wrote. That still resonates all the time. That's a big, big one.

59:27Well, I have an affinity for nerds because I was an SNL nerd. I was as big a nerd as anybody. I was completely in awe of the show when I got there. I knew who Edie Baskin and Leo Yoshimura were. I memorized them. Key photographers. That's how pathetic the nerdy I was. yeah so yeah like you know a lot of my most famous stuff has to do with like triumph and the star wars line is one of my happiest memories because i was like making fun of them but i felt an affinity toward them at the same time but the nerds waiting online for star wars and triumphs uh they were all like they all took it so well they were all just comedy fans it was like yeah it was like when it was like have you guys did you guys i'm sure you spayed a sped you both probably got to meet don rickles right yeah i did yep did he insult you when he met you the first time do an impression of a gorilla is what he said to me oh really yeah you know uh smig's on um one time chris farley took his mom to see him on one of the breaks on the weeks off and he goes and he goes i go what happened he goes we sat right in the front row and uh he goes rickles comes over to him in the middle and goes what's your name tiny and he goes uh he goes my name's chris and he goes how much you weigh chris and he goes about 260 he goes the left side of your ass maybe and then he went to the next table yeah then he knew that it was chris right i don't know i don't know it's just all funny that he's so funny he's just like i'm just gonna treat him like anybody else yeah i just go there's a fat guy in the front sir maybe go for him yeah he has a little bug in his ear yeah when he got older fat guy three three lady wearing a flower box hat take four steps to the right closer that's him that's him

1:01:25Dana Carvey:get him i took it as a badge of honor i love being ripped by oh yeah when i met him i was a producer at the conan show i think or no i was doing triumph i think and i did it for for rickles but but i met him first they introduced me because they wanted to make it okay that you know make sure he would be cool with it and he sees me and he just says hello rabbi which i later heard was a move he had for a lot of semitic that was his move like john stewart told me once that that was the first thing he said to Jon Stewart. Yeah, he had his big tricks. Just a good, safe, offensive, across-the-board thing to say.

1:02:07Yeah, you know, we've all got our standard zingers. Going full circle toward the end. If you think Triumph never said the buzz around flies around my ass before, you're sadly right.

1:02:18Dana Carvey:There's only so many mathematical ways to get at that ass joke, okay? They can be flying around. Yeah. But Regis told me once this was toward when when Rickles was still on the road. You know, honest to God, some nights you don't know if he's going to make it. They give him two eyeballs. He's rubbing his knees. Honest to God, I don't know. And they play the music. It goes out and he kills him for an hour, kid. Then he lies down on the couch. I like honest to God. Honest to God. Who's better than Robert Smigel? Honest to God. This guy, he's everywhere. I mean, you know, it really is. He was really nice to me, too.

1:02:50I love you. This is insane. I had an idea for a sitcom and it's one of the happiest half hours of my whole life. I got to sit in the hotel room and pitch Larry King and Regis Philbin, a sitcom where they played an old gay couple and they took it dead serious. Like, this is a great idea. And they had already like consulted Rickles about it. And Larry King's like, Rickles says we can do it, but we can't be too swish. Swish. and um you know we would just talk about it and regis the funniest was regis he was like so bob again i apologize for my inferior regis but it's like just so if we do this you know i know there's going to be a script but not not really right i mean you know we can get out there and larry and i can just go off right just play off each other right well there's a story to the you know it's a sitcom it's got to happen yeah but bob i mean yeah i'm learning lines and yeah i mean we have a natural thing yeah rickle says rickle says we just have to look natural i'm like when did rickles become the oracle of everything by rickles mr c cpo sharky cpo sharky 1975 yeah if you have a copy of that treatment can you send it to me and dana um i don't think i ever bothered to write it somehow they said yes to just meeting with me for a half an hour one one other thing that smigel has it's one of the funniest titles is the autism benefit the night of too many stars it's the funniest title you have done of course one of both of you have done it you um you've done it a couple of times dana you did the first one and it was one of the greatest bits that it's ever been on that we've done like seven of them was it well hal wilner rest his soul yes music was an incredibly great guy who uh was the music supervisor or supervisor at saturday night live and for 200 years for 200 years he missed the first um 300 and he um he would help me book he knew everybody in music yeah and he would help me book the show with you know he we had a booker who would be paid and then how for free would get me, you know, he got me Elvis Costello once he got me sting and this particular bit, he got me Lou Reed.

1:05:18And it was like a surprise appearance. The people in Roseland, you remember we did this in Roseland and they were crazy. And Lou Reed comes out and it's like Jimmy Fallon saying Lou Reed, and he's going to have an all-star band. And then one by one, he introduces the all-star band and it's all comedians. comedians it's on the drums dana carvey on the guitar colonel brian i think sandler was there too jack black adam sandler and lou reed played it perfectly like this is the all-star band and and then they did this incredibly funny somewhat disrespectful but affectionate version of walk on the wild side.

1:06:00I love it. And it's on YouTube. And Sandler literally like is right in his face going,

1:06:15Dana Carvey:Lou Reed got mad at me. It was very awkward. I still remember it. Yeah, after the rehearsal, I didn't really have a monitor. I could hear it. He's going to take a walk on the wild side. So he very seriously as everyone scattered just walked over to me. And just was intense Lou Reed and goes, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do what? Whatever he thought I was doing on the drums. I go, I'm a comedian and I can't hear myself. Don't play like that. You know, he just got very serious. Maybe it was nerves. But then we came out later. He was totally affable. He was probably just that was the only thing he probably cared about was that it sounded good.

1:06:48Right. And I wanted to play well.

1:06:52Dana Carvey:I just that my monitor, I couldn't hear. You're a great drummer and you did. It sounds amazing. Oh, that's good. I guess I got it on the air show. we just had a brief rehearsal you absolutely it was kind of fun you know adam's an incredible adam's a great guitarist and conan's a good guitarist and and jack black's i mean these are like all the most musical yeah they just happen to all be there and that song is brilliant but it is very very austere and very simple which is you know take a walk on the way don't you know it's like it was perfect and everybody got a turn uh you didn't because you were the drummer but All these other guys did solos in their different ways.

1:07:29Right. I learned a few things from Smigel today. I learned that Franken and Davis hired him. Franken and Davis hired me. That is correct. His dad invented crest white strips? No, that's not true. Okay. I invented, I heard that he did. Tooth bonding. He developed the whole tooth bonding technique. Right. And Lou Reed hates Dana Carvey. These are the only things I picked up.

1:07:53Dana Carvey:Lou Reed hates Dana Carvey. has gone to the stars. I have insight onto, this involves you, someone told me today. So Michael Gordon wants to go write for the Conan show. He talks to Bob Odenkirk and Bob Odenkirk said, wait, wait till we get Smigel as the head writer. And then somehow you got, you became the head writer and then Michael Gordon. Oh, you're talking about the original Conan show. I thought you meant Michael Gordon wants to write for the new Coney Show. Oh, sorry. This is always back in time when they, but he said... Michael Gordon knew Bob Odenkirk? I think so. Or at least casually.

1:08:33Dana Carvey:Oh, hey. Oh, so funny. Oh, Dana. So good. Oh, my God. That's so funny. Oh, my God. No, you're not doing that, are you? No. Was he mad about Chippin' Dulles? Because there's a rumor down he said I was really mad about it. And I wasn't. Yeah, that was something down he read online. He read online that you it was the most ridiculous lie imaginable that you like marched into loren's office yeah you were like you'd been there for like four weeks yeah i go you know what marcy would have tackled the last you could have been there for five years you never would have pounded on loren's door yeah that was clearly made up but there's a controversy around was that exploitive of chris or not people have their different opinions when he did the chippendale sketch with his shirt off I thought that I thought the opposite, which was, I mean, I just have an inherent.

1:09:29I thought the people were not laughing at Chris. I didn't see it that way. I thought because there have been a million fat comedians who, you know, exploit their bodies in some way or another. Playoff being heavy. Jackie Gleason. But the thing that I saw that night was an audience fall in love with Chris. Yeah. Because he was so committed and he was such a good dancer. And he wasn't like he wasn't remotely ashamed of his body, you know, that whether that's, you know, obviously not necessarily the truth, but that's what he projected. And to me, it was like, if anything, they didn't use the word empowering back then.

1:10:09But to me, that's how it felt to me. Like, you know, the way somebody like Bridget Everett, where the person is, you know, completely unselfconscious about. their body at least it played that way to me but you know i would say this i would say if you saw that in chris if you felt that that that was happening to chris then maybe you should have talked to chris about it and made sure it was cool with chris instead of just saying tut tut

1:10:42Dana Carvey:this is no good thing i just saw a young cast member yeah i did not look there's different levels this was young chris i saw a guy very athletic i think anyone next next to patrick swayze would look kind of chubby and so chris was moving really like a chubby guy not like a next level he was not even that big back then no and i saw a guy killing with physical comedy but if he was sad about it inside i was clueless to it i was clueless too if he was but i mean And he when I saw him at Second City that summer, he was another person I had the privilege of seeing audition back then. And he what struck me about him at Second City was how graceful he was.

1:11:26Like he was the opposite of how he falls down. Who got who gained some weight. He said he was an athlete. Yeah. Yeah. And he was incredibly graceful. And that's what separated him besides, you know, his incredible characterizations. categorizations like but you know so to me that's um the sketch was the only thing it was exploiting was his incredible was what made him special i would go by david's athleticism only because

1:11:54Dana Carvey:david was probably the closest to i don't remember any problems i don't think david was the closest back then though maybe not back then but after they did their movies and stuff well right up there right that's different by then chris started to get like like you know in the motivational speaker sketch i remember adding i had one contribution to that sketch because bob was no longer there oddly enough yeah bob wrote the entire sketch and spade you know this i i added just that little part at the end where he's like matt's gonna shade you you're here matt's here you're you know that thing yeah and then you're here matt's here yeah that's great and he knocks over the coffee table yeah and that was like i just felt it needed like a physical topper at the end yeah we put it in and it worked and then i feel though that it did lead to like this slippery slope of farley knocking things oh he's going through walls the ceiling yeah it started it started something that i did not intend to to happen yeah well they're kind of waiting for it after that every sketch they're like what's he gonna hit what's he gonna fall through well certainly with the Matt Foley ones.

1:12:59Yeah. But it started happening in other sketches too. He just walks in and falls down. Fatty falls down. That's all you got, Farls. I would call it. Then we started getting cynical about it. Like Chris, you know, we would just come up with different means. That Nancy Kerrigan sketch, he was a great ice skater too. Oh, that's true. There you go. Yeah. He could ice skate as well. Yeah. So that canceled out Shippendales. So we're even. I just, you know, when people say, it's just very glib to like, you know, that sketch set them off. That's it's just, so I just find that irresponsible too. Well, I never heard him complain about it in the years to come.

1:13:39So I, I think he was just like, if you're a young cast member and that, and you get a sketch, that's a 10 out of 10 and he took it and it blew him up. I don't think he ever looked back and said, but I felt like, no,

1:13:52Dana Carvey:so many other things got, did he ever take his shirt off again on the show? I mean, he fell around and stuff and walked through walls, but I don't remember. I'm not sure he did. It didn't become a thing. Let's get Chris's shirt off. So that's good, too. I mean, there was a lot of restraint until like the later. I think it wasn't until his like third or fourth year. It was like people were running out of what to do with them. And it became like a shorthand kind of cheap move to have Farley break something, you know. But he was like, oh, my God, Spade. Do you remember his acting in that Tom Schiller?

1:14:31Oh, the coffee one? Yeah. Just the way his face changes when he hears that they've switched Folgers. That's a great idea. How many takes does he get to trash the whole set? I know. That was all Tom Schiller. The Schiller vision of the Folgers commercial was a real hit. But it's kind of a gem that not everyone saw. I put it in the best of because of that. Yeah. Great one. So that people would see it because it was one of his greatest acting jobs ever. Yeah, they could look it up.

1:15:10All right. Let's wrap. Anything else for this guy, Dana?

1:15:13Dana Carvey:Let's see. Anything else for this guy? Your social security number? This is just housekeeping basics. Social security number? Just stay on and do the paperwork. We're going to jump off. but um um no that's it you did they covered literally everything you've ever done well we did a lot of snl but obviously robert and i did the dana carvey show and oh my god and biggiously that's so funny that we didn't talk about the dana carvey it's all right it's a really we're satanite live focus but that was uh you'll do a whole podcast about that right we have a hotel transylvania podcast after this if you want to stay on that's what i'm waiting for you want to stay on you you were so just a hotel transylvania 2 podcast he did the clutch cargo characters on conan which i loved you know the arnold just the lips and the arms talk about exaggeration oh my god we didn't talk about the hans and franz movie that was a hans and franz this is the part of the show where we just talk about how much better the show could have been well we'll Hans and Franz movie oh we don't have you back we saw I wrote all your stuff out today and I I knew there was no way this was gonna fit into an hour and so I know I just it's okay more than anything I wish I talked about that which one the Hans and Franz movie because because it's so funny and well it's a hysterical movie Dana has talked about it on here because It was the whole way it got put together and then it didn't work out, but there was so many.

1:16:44Dana Carvey:Hans and Franz, the girly man dilemma. But it was not homophobic. It was just girly men are just men without big muscles like them. Do you remember the part? Okay, well, this is going to, we can't. I was going to talk about the Siskel and Ebert part. It was one of my favorite. Yeah. Tell the whole story. You have 12 seconds. Go ahead. Hans and Franz were doing their movie and they're running around somewhere and they go into a room and Siskel and Ebert are watching the movie. I mean, they're not they're just doing the movie. They're in the movie. They're in the movie. And they're doing a cross country trip to Los Angeles because they want to be in the movies and be with Arnold.

1:17:22Dana Carvey:Yeah. And then they're riding a bicycle across country. And then at one point they happen upon a big, a big edifice and they just walk in and Siskel and Ebert, the most famous critics at the time. Yeah. So school and Roger Ebert are sitting in the theater and it's just like, how's the movie? It's pretty good. So far, they're watching the movie. Lots of action and this, in this dark room, watching the exact movie that's taking place. So on the screen is them, us talking to them. Yeah. It's you talking to them. They're like in their movie seats. And then on the screen is us talking to them watching the movie.

1:18:05Right. But it's like, like four seconds behind. Four seconds behind, got it. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah. And then eventually they get kidnapped because they're girly men. Right. Like you go to check in on them later and they're gone. Because the evil villain has kidnapped. He's like, remember Sonny Bono disappears? Right. I can't remember who famous girly men of the day.

1:18:31Dana Carvey:The bad guy had a big button that said hurt the weather. and then we cut to Stallone and look out his window and go, the weather seems hurt somehow. It was going to be Dolph Lundgren and he had this kind of final solution villain kind of thing where I am going to eliminate all the girly men from the face of the earth. And then he turned to the camera and said, and I'm going to hurt the environment. And the button that said hurt the environment. That's right. Because we were obsessed. I desperately wanted to do like Mike Myers was my hero later because he with Dr. Evil created a character that remember all these 80s comedies, the villain.

1:19:17You always had to like take it seriously for like. Right. Rather than whether it was Max Fonsito or in Strange Brew or like there. You always had to have these obligatory villains. and so we were trying to make fun of that and have the villain be as funny as the and then Mike ended up doing it good for Mike good for Mike

1:19:41Dana Carvey:alright this has been Robert Smigel one of the I would say he's the greatest sketch writer of his generation he's in the discussion I'd put him at the top but everyone can have their opinion jack candy was the guy that i different different lane though i put him in a different lane but yeah it's a different lane but here's what i'll say about jack that was why all the writers i would say if you pulled at least the writers of that era yeah they would have gone with jack and it's because someone like me wrote a lot of i'm very proud of a lot of things i wrote but i feel like you know there are ideas that only i could have thought of but there are other ones that I think other people could have and where Jack like nobody else could have thought of almost any of the sketches Jack Handy.

1:20:32Any read through you'd be like oh my god this is Jack Handy within three lines. Everyone looks around. He's over there smiling. People act like he was just the act seven guy like the five to eleven guy. Tootsis was the biggest character on the show for a couple years. Literally the biggest character on the show was a cat puppy.

1:20:52Dana Carvey:yeah yeah i'm not tuned look out and we'd all crash frozen caveman lawyer yeah would always they would get no laughs practically but everybody from lauren on down was in awe of that brilliant sketch and so it was always it always made the show it was never at the end of the show because we were all collectively just so proud to put it on i am a simple unfrozen caveman or something i That was just a perfect use of Phil Hartman. You did that perfect smarmy. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, it's almost like William Shatner or something. I'm a simple caveman. I'm just a simple caveman. I think 60 million in punitive damages feels about right.

1:21:43So we all love Jack. Yes, okay.

1:21:45Dana Carvey:Thanks, Robert. Thanks, Robert. Thanks, guys. Loved it.

1:21:54Hey, guys, if you're loving this podcast, which you are, be sure to click follow on your favorite podcast app. Give us a review, five-star rating, and maybe even share an episode that you've loved with a friend. If you're watching this episode on YouTube, please subscribe. We're on video now. Fly on the Wall is presented by Odyssey, an executive produced by Danny Carvey and David Spade, Heather Santoro and Greg Holtzman, Maddie Sprung-Kaiser and Leah Reese Dennis of Odyssey.

1:22:21Dana Carvey:Our senior producer is Greg Holtzman, and the show is produced and edited by Phil Sweet-Tech. Booking by Cultivated Entertainment. Special thanks to Patrick Fogarty, Evan Cox, Maura Curran, Melissa Wester, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Sean Cherry, Kurt Courtney, and Lauren Vieira. Reach out with us. Any questions to be asked and answered on the show, you can email us at flyonthewall at odyssey.com. That's A-U-D-A-C-Y dot com.