"John Mulaney"
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Well, the fans are filing in here at Smartless Arena, and we're ready for a great game. I think that all the teams today are ready to go, and there's a lot on the line here. So let's see how they do over here on an all-new Smartless. Smart. Smart. Smart.

Listen, I just want to say this, Jay, because I haven't until now. I think it's so brave for you with your eyewear to go Sally, Jessie, Raphael, because I love the look. For me, I love it. Sally, Jessie would be a red. Yeah, this is a black. But those do look like the same shape. The same shape. Yeah, they are the same shape. Wait, am I usually wearing a different pair of glasses?

I don't know, but for some reason today, they're casting you in a different light. They're casting you in a different role. Well, maybe it's because I'm suffering deeply from COVID. Maybe that's what you're seeing, Will. You don't have it. Why don't you have a little bit more sympathy for me because I'm lousy with COVID. Do you really have it? Yeah, but I didn't cancel today. I'm going to fight through.

And I'm going to do a great session. Wait, do you feel like shit? No, I'm on day six. So I'm still testing positive, but the symptoms are all but gone. I don't know if you can... I still sound a little kind of 1993 Sunday morning. You know, a little backed up, a little schnitzy. Yeah.

So you've had to tough it out there at your house. It's not that tough. I've been very old, old goose shack. I'm feeling goose shack. The goose shack. The goose. Oh, the goose. Oh, that's right. Chronic masturbator, apparently. Okay. Can I tell you, you want to hear a funny story? Sorry, let me just close the COVID loop for one second. And let me say thank you to all the geniuses that developed this vaccine because...

Because I could tell that this is, I've had a pretty minor thing, you know, but were it not for the vaccine, I could tell this would not just be a cold. This would be, there's a little engine in this thing that the vaccine neutralizes.

neutralizes pretty well. So thank you to the smart folks in the world, the scientists and whatnot. So... You're welcome. Well, yeah. Sean and I, from the bottom of both of our hearts, you're welcome. And dark coal hearts. What were you going to say, Will? So there's a... In this, where I currently am, and let's just keep it anonymous because I don't want to...

But there's a certain chain department store nearby here. One of the people on our crew, he tells me that there is a certain app on his phone that's used for mail hookups. Uh-oh. That the bathroom and changing room at this place has Glorials. What's the address? What's the address? Hold on. Wait, was there an S on the end of hole?

Can we double back to the multiple holes? Because I got questions, but go ahead. For sure. And so as we're working on the show, I have worked it into virtually every aspect of hosting this thing. People talking about their Lego and their build and this thing has a hole and I go, somebody did a cruise ship and I said, you know, the only cruising I do is in the men's department over at blah, blah, blah.

And the contestants have no idea what I'm talking about. And all the crew are dying because everybody now knows about this. Wait, who told you this? A guy that I work with who's on one of these apps for hooking up with other dudes and goes, guess what? You'll never believe. Like less than a mile from here is a full hookup thing. Glory...

plural, holes at this place. And I said, why wouldn't it just be hookup? Why is it glory holes? Is that a real thing? And he said, yes. That's like leftover from the 80s. I didn't know that existed anymore. So first of all, the general concept of the glory hole is you can go ahead and you can put yourself in there and see what you get kind of thing? First of all, it depends on what side of it you're on. That's right. I love that you guys, you can ask me

Oh, yeah, Sean, have you ever been to a glory hole? No. But is the concept that you're too ashamed to have a face-to-face hookup and that you just want to put it in the mystery box? To be honest, I don't understand because the mystery box, you don't know what's on the other side. You don't know the age, the STD level of that person. Then that was my next question. If you have multiple holes, and so I'm imagining that they vary in girth. Yeah.

And so will that then tell you, A, where you sit in the whole scale of things, but also what you're hoping is on the other side? But see, I don't know if it's ever revealed. I don't think it's ever revealed. It never gets revealed. Are we crafting a new reality show?

That like there's a reveal on the other side of somebody? Will, aren't you just kind of, were you, why don't you? Oh, I want to go over there so bad. Yeah, go over there with your iPhone and just photograph what these holes look like and maybe what sort of language there is on the wall. And then we're going to be like, we haven't heard from Will in two hours. And the other thing is, we drive by every morning. It's like 7 a.m. we drive by. There's like a line and it's like the mayor, the local pastor, like all these people. They're all coming out of the shop.

Right, and they're all in there. And then the manager of the place is like, man, we got a line backed up here every day, but we do not move a lot of product this time. But everybody, it just seems to everybody's all filled up before they come in here and they leave, they're empty. Or then they go in the dressing room and I guess nothing fits. We got the wrong product. None of our product is fitting anybody. Right.

That's hysterical. We haven't sold a shirt. Can you imagine my delight when he told me this? Yes. When he told me that this was going on? By the way, does he frequent this place himself? No, he hasn't gone. He hasn't gone, but that's what he says. That's what he says. All right, well, you bring us back a video, would you? I will. I'll keep you guys posted. Sorry, anyway. And then send it to me as well. All right, so this is a perfect segue. Okay. On to our guest.

Okay. Wow. I can best describe our guest today as that guy from that thing. But truly, he's in everything. You may know him from SNL, which doesn't narrow it down much. Although he's credited for co-creating Bill Hader's iconic character of Stefan. He's got not one, but three Netflix comedy specials. He stars as a chipmunk in Chippendale Rescue Rangers on Disney+. Boy, does he make me laugh. It's Mr. John Mulaney. John Mulaney. Look at him. Hey. Hey.

John, what do you have to say about the whole glory hole thing before we wrap that up? Is it drywall? Good question. Because I always thought it was the wall of a bathroom stall, which would be metal. Metal. Right. Yeah, no, that's a separator. That's for wide stance folks. It would have to be drywall, yeah. Or plywood. Or plywood. Pfft.

That's scarier. Yeah. I've got to go check it out. I mean, obviously, I'm just obsessed with knowing the answer to all of this. Sure. I just want to know what's written around it, you know? Like, usually somebody's really kind of really running their mouth there when they write shit on a separator, right? Between a stall. On a separator, but you think maybe there'd be more grace and dignity to the glory hole where it's like there's no need to write glory.

crude thing. Some sort of encouraging line, you know? The act itself is already... No, because it's about love. Yeah, and this is, it's all love and we're going to move through it with love. Maybe it's a Washington Post thing. Truth dies in the darkness. Go ahead and enter. Something like that. Yeah. You don't need all the arrows and the innuendo and the little limericks which are in poor taste.

Yeah, let's not be childish. We all know why we're here. It's a helmet on a helmet. Do you think that there's like some ink hair, you know, like some drawing of some hair and stuff like that? Or is it just like a big smiley face? I'm sorry, what? Okay. I could see if they have those screens you sometimes see in elevators that give you like the news.

You know, they give you like limited financial and entertainment news. In case you've got stamina. Yeah, if you're standing there for a while, you want to know. What if it says something inspiring, like when the football players run through it, like Notre Dame, and there's something over the door. If there's just something real inspiring over it. What would get you charged up, Will? What would you want to slap? Like go, go, go? You know, I don't know. Like, you know, go forth. Go get them? Yeah. Go get them.

Go get him. You know, go bravely into the void or something. You know what I mean? Let me tell you something. This is not the way we started our session with David Remnick. Okay? I can assure you that. Mr. Mullaney. It is how you started with Vivek Murthy. I do believe. It's almost the exact same banter. Very similar. It's a major left. But that was more about the dangers of a glory hole. I know. Because he's got to be that guy. He has to.

Mr. Mulaney, thank you for being here today. I'm very, very flattered to be here. I've listened to, I think, almost every episode of this show. No, don't buy it. Well, will you listen to your own? Uh,

Absolutely, yeah. All right, good. John Mulaney, I'm such a, and I think we all are such big fans. Your last Saturday Night Live was so, they're all great, but that last one was so fucking funny. Your monologue was genius. I was like, it was so funny. How do you find such comfort, such comfort and such ease? Is it because you've been there so long?

It is like home, right? It is a little bit like, yeah, it's like going back to school in a way. Because you fall right back into the same, like, fall back into the same insecurities and securities. Right. And in terms of doing the monologue, it's so scary. And it's so many people that it's laughable. I think I get relaxed because if something went wrong, it would go so wrong. Right.

And there'd be no way around... No one could talk me down and go, it's okay that you accidentally... And you can't blame anyone else because you're writing your own monologue, right? Yes. And it's you right into the... Not right into the lens, but basically. Basically into the lens. So you first got hired at SNL as a writer. Yes. Correct? Yeah, but... Will, sorry to interrupt. Yeah, just interrupt, Sean. Go ahead and just... No, no, let me say something. Let me say something. Good, good, good. You're right. You're right.

I was hired as a writer. There you go. Okay. Fucking. God, Sean. And then you... So wait, listen, John. Wait, Sean, we haven't moved on yet. We haven't moved on yet.

Wait, this has got to be a great question. Hold on, everybody. Get it, Sean. I was going to say, before SNL, you were discovered from Late Night with Conan. Is that true? And how did that go down? Who saw you on that and what was that like? The talent department at SNL saw me on Conan.

Hang on, what's a talent department at SNL? What does that mean? It's just a room of the most talented people in the world. We call them the talent. Let me see. But you know, also, they saw me on Conan O'Brien, but I was doing ASCAP monologues that same summer.

And I, when Amy and Seth were doing ASCAP a lot. So Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers were doing ASCAP, which is an improv thing at Upright Citizens Brigade. Which is at 20, which at that time was at 26th and 8th under Gristides. Yeah. And,

And they might have, you know, I haven't, I think they kind of floated my name there as well. That seems familiar. Yeah. Because I knew some folks that were working there. And the desire was to be a writer or performer or both? No, I auditioned as a performer, but it's so, I don't know, there's so much, it's so fluid.

between the two. So you're doing monologues at ASCOT. How did you know Amy and Seth to do that? Like, you weren't on an improv team at UCB or anything. No, I'd been an intern at UCB, and I was taking...

When I first moved to New York in 2004, I was taking classes there and I was an intern there, which meant I was taping garbage bags to the ceiling so that McDonald's water could leak down into the theater without splashing on the good folks. Did you start at 26th and 8th at that theater? Yeah, I started at 26th and 8th. I'd been to the first theater a couple times in college. And this was the second less fire hazard of the theaters. And I... Yeah, so I was an intern. I was a janitor there.

- A jam. - On Saturday nights for, let's see, Respecto, were they that night? - Respecto Montalban. - Respecto Montalban. - Class is that. - For a while, the NYU Hammercats had a slot there. - These are all improv teams. - Okay, got it. - And I would watch them as I taped the garbage bags to the ceiling, 'cause water was actively leaking. - Wait, Mulaney, remind our audience who was in Respecto over the years. - Let's see, Rob Hubel. - He's great. - Owen Burke.

And the rest. And all of them were in it. Willie, didn't you... I did a monologue, didn't I, at ASCAT? You sure did. A couple times. Remind me how that... You had the sniffles that night, I remember. Did I really? You had the Saturday night sniffles, I think. Was I still enjoying it?

I don't know. But I remember it being very nerve-wracking. Yeah, you did it a couple times at 26 and 8. Now, how did that go, remind me? I guess I was in a blackout or other things. It's a herald. Well, have Melanie remind you how it goes. John, so you stand there, and then you, do you get, don't you get sent like one word from the audience, and then you got to do a whole, literally a, a,

Just improvise a whole monologue about that one word. You're scented in that they say it. You ask, yes. People yell out multiple words, and I would say you pick the one closest to something you might have anything to say about. And then you just freestyle a story, but it has to last like five or ten minutes, right? I think it's five minutes, and it's supposed to be true.

Yes. Oh, really? It's supposed to be a true story. Yeah, why? Did you make your shit up? I don't remember. I honestly don't. How long ago was that? Wasn't that like 20 years ago? That was like 2003. I mean, would it be fair to say, Will, that like...

it could be a full story with an arc, but almost if you just gave details of anything, even if you just walked us through a procedure. - Yeah, yeah, I would never, once you do it more and more, 'cause really what you're there to do is you're in service of the improvisers who are standing on the stage behind you. And you're trying to give them as many ideas to inspire them to create sketches, improvised sketches based on that. - Do you wanna know my story? - Hey, Sean. - Not really, not really. - God damn it. - What is with you today?

fucking... I know you're the star of Goodnight Oscar, but here there are other people, okay? So maybe in Chicago, armed with your fucking stellar reviews, you can just boss your way through shit. But here, there are other people. Anyway, John, so sorry. Um...

But that was the thing, right, John? You're just trying to give them ideas? Yeah, you're just trying to give, like, texture and details. I mean, they're not going to perform your story front to back. Right, and your story doesn't, what's, it's a, yeah, front to back. That is the way to do it, right? John, do you have something you want to say? My story's pretty good for my ASCAP. Yeah.

Here we go. It's really good. It's really short. So Armani, the Armani, Giorgio Armani, invited me. This is so long ago. We don't need the Armani, okay? The Armani. An Armani. Yeah. Somebody in the extended family. Yeah.

I like the puppy. Do you see how funny this is? So we go to, he invited me to go to some fashion show in Milan. So I go there. Who did? Giorgio Armani. At the real Giorgio Armani. At the original. At the original. Not to be confused with Giorgio Armani who lives in the North Valley here.

Go ahead. So I go there. I go there. I watch the thing. And then he invites. There's this party at his house afterwards. And so I get one of the guys that works there. Wait, how is this related to ASCII?

This is the story I told for ASCAP. Well, no, it was a gathering. ASCAP's a gathering of people, and it sounds like this is, too. Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. Wait, so you told the story of going to Armani's house? Yes, and then I went to the house, and I grabbed the guy who worked at the party, and I said, I want to see the rest of his house. He's like, he really doesn't allow that. I'm like, please, please, please. So I go up to his... He gets in his elevator. I go up to his... The bedroom floor, right? And I go into his closet, because I wanted to see what clothes he wore. And in his closet is...

all in a line, like 50 navy shirts and 50 pairs of jeans below it. All the exact same lined up. And it's all Tommy Hilfiger? And it's all Tommy Hilfiger. Were you caught? It's all from the gap. I wasn't. I hightailed it out there because I thought I was going to get shot or something. Did you steal anything? No, no, no, I didn't steal anything. Great story. And now, a word from our sponsor. All right, back to the show.

Anyway, listen, John, so you're from Chicago. I didn't know you're from Chicago. And you went, how long did you live here? And you grew up here? Zero to 18. Yeah, I grew up in Lincoln Park. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, you're from Chicago. I grew up in the Burbs.

Sean's in Chicago right now. I know. I can tell from his hat and the view and the fact that I know he's there. So I've always wondered what that, so listener, Sean has on a hat with the four stars and the blue stripe across the top and a blue stripe across the bottom. That's a Chicago flag or an Illinois flag? Chicago. So the city of Chicago has its own flag? Is that the only city? LA doesn't have a city flag, does it?

I'm sure it does. I'm sure it does.

I'm doing a Google search right now. New York City does. Wait, wait, wait. Melinda, you'll be happy to know that when we were in Chicago doing our shows live, that Sean's generous friend came by and brought us Chicago hats. Yeah. 20 different Chicago hats. Like literally 20. Steve Horvath, yeah. Steve Horvath, very kind of him. But I was like, how would we need to know? It was very...

Sounds like it was a lot. It was a lot. It sounds like it was too many hats. Well, no. The way you're describing it, it's not, I'm not getting just a generosity vibe. It's a lot of hats. Yeah, the amount was surprising. Loved it. I will say this. And you probably had like carry-ons for the tour, you know, and you didn't want, you had to now carry 20 hats in a laundry bag from the Four Seasons or something. Do you have merch at your shows, John? Yes, thank you for mentioning that. That's short for merchandise. Sorry, John. No.

What is your merchandise, John? Wow, I get to plug the merch? I have a T-shirt that says, I saw him just after he got out of rehab. That would be the best seller right now. No way. Yes, it says that and it has the tour. So, John, so, Melania, you grew up in Chicago. When did you start, did you start doing stand-up or did you start doing sketch? What was your trajectory? Like, outside of a high school environment, I started doing, I did stand-up at a couple...

not even open mics, just like weird variety nights at places like The Note near Wicker Park. - But that's ballsy though, to just start to do standup, were you scared? - I had weirdly high self-esteem when it came to that.

Not really about any other part of life, but I was like, yeah, no, I'm a headliner. I'm going to do this. It's going to be great. People are going to be talking about this. And then I did improv in college. I auditioned for the improv group my fourth day of college, and the director was a young man named Nick Kroll. No way. Sure.

He cast me. Yeah, he was a senior. I was a freshman and he cast me in the improv group. Very much changed my life. That's amazing. Wait, where was this? What college was this? This was Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Right, where you studied theology as well? Yeah, English and theology. Why?

Oh, I thought... Want to be a priest? No, I mainly studied Jewish theology. There were a couple of very good Jewish studies professors at Georgetown, and I just found it much more interesting, theology, because it's a lot more like...

What the hell do we know? Yeah, what do we know from anything? Yeah, Catholics was a lot more like, do this and you'll spend this many days in fire, but then you can get out if someone prays for you. There were too many rules, too much structure. Judaism was a lot of like, who the hell are you to ask? You know, like, is there a God? Like, who the hell are you? Sounds like shorter chapters, which is probably smart. Excuse me? Who the hell are you to ask that? Why is there water?

Get out of here. Get out of here. Now, were you a Weisenheimer in school when you were a little kid and that's where you thought maybe there might be a way to make a living here? I remember in third grade, a teacher gave me an article like Xeroxed from Esquire. Like it wasn't for kids. It was like an article and it was about this guy, Henry Beard, who wrote for the Harvard Lampoon, the National Lampoon. And the name of the article was The Original Smartass White Guy. Okay.

And she slipped it to me, Miss Koal. And she said, you'd be into this guy and this type of thing. That's cool. And yeah, it was cool. But I don't recall being like a troublemaker.

But you knew that you had skills. You were making kids laugh. That felt good. Yeah, and you wanted more. And I was kind of a writer-performer in that I would tell more poorly behaved children what might be a funny thing to do. Right. What if someone threw that out the window right now? And they would take the bait and you would watch. Yeah, that'd be pretty crazy if someone just threw their potato battery out the window right now. Right. Yeah.

Can you imagine how that'd be crazy? I know you're pretty unstable. God, you would have been... You've got a lot going on at home. Maybe you'd be like a king for a day if you did that. You'd be great in a cult. Do you know that? You'd be great if you worked in a cult. I think I'd be pretty susceptible. I don't have a lot of cult confidence. I don't know how...

I don't know if I'd be the leader. I think I'd be a member, and it'd take me a while. It'd take me a while to see the light. Are you saying there wasn't a lot of bad behavior when you were a little kid? Because I'm just going through, as soon as you said battery, I had this horrible memory of me and my friends throwing batteries at stuff. And there's more detail to that. I remember...

I remember we got caught tagging up a garage. Yeah, we were always... You were in a tag crew? Yeah, and my tag... Was hat sideways? Tell me the hat was sideways. Just a little askew. We wrote, we are the fuckers. Sure. And did you spell fuckers all weird-like? No, I spelled it normally. Like scary weird? F-U-K. To me, it was just the declaration. We are...

We are the fuckers. Of what? Of what? Of everything, man. Of anything, especially a garage door. You guys are hardcore. So you could have gotten in trouble. If you'd gotten caught, you could have gotten in trouble for a few dozen things when you were a kid or not. Yeah, and I had a real, I didn't have a pyromania phase, but my good friend did. And I would supervise. I kind of supervised that a little. You weren't mean to cats or anything, were you? Not at all, no.

Not at all. Love was allergic to cats. So we had kind of agree to disagree relationship cats and I, but- Would you put like food coloring in beverages and things like that, John? No, but we would do a lot of like, what could we put a bottle rocket in? What do you think, he was in a church group? Yeah.

He's studying theology and being a real hellcat. No, but you're like the foreman of trouble. Like you just got everybody else creating trouble for you. The George Foreman of trouble? Yeah, you're like the German Foreman's Grill of trouble. Yeah, I was. I was...

I was healthy, lean. Wait, so, John, so you go to... Georgetown. Georgetown. And you're the guy running the improv team, group, whatever. Well, now, hold on a second. I got to stop you there. I see John's got a Zevia beverage in his hand. Now, that is... What's that? It is a Stevia-based soda.

And I can safely recommend every single flavor. Hang on, John. You're not getting any freebies out of this. You're a guest. I don't need freebies. My recurring Amazon order. I have two recurring Amazon orders that I, one I don't know how to cancel and one I can find. See, that's why I've never signed up for the automatic. What is the one you don't know how to cancel? It's so much cream soda, but I'm fine with it. But it's backing up.

There's baby formula diapers and so much cream soda Zevia. And they're tall boys, too, because I just... Oh, I do like that. The tall ones are nice. They can make tall ones. Yeah. Now, does that... That gets us into... You seem like a guy who watches what they put in their body. We're going to double back to Georgetown. Sorry, are we back to the glory holes? Oh, no. No.

I went all the way back. So is there no sugar goes into that body, John? No, sugar goes into this body. Yeah. I am recently sober, and so I'm allowing myself a lot of...

Sugar. Sugar and indulgences. Yeah. I'm trying to cut back, but I haven't yet. And I won't today. And I won't tomorrow. Watch out for the man with no vices. Go ahead and keep one or two. Yeah, sugar's just fine. I quit smoking cigarettes in November, too. Oh, buddy. Stop showing off. Stop showing off. I went to a hypnotist. Yeah. He was a UCLA paranormal professor.

who now hypnotizes people in his garage in Santa Monica. Sounds safe. Do you see spaceships when he's done? I mean, honestly, none of this seems problematic to me. Keep going. Remember how I said I'm susceptible to cults? Well, I go to this guy's garage. I spent eight hours in the garage. So you're telling me the guy with the crystal ball, he moved his operation into the garage and now he's...

Getting people off butts? Well, if he's so fake, how come he has some headshots thanking him for his work? Some. Yeah, some sun-faded headshots thanking him for getting them off cigarettes. Entertainers who I recognize vaguely. Wait, so did it work? I mean, are you craving cigarettes? No, it actually did work.

I mean, I smoked from 13, age 13 to 39 and stopped in November. Wow. After the second session. Cold turkey. No weaning whatsoever. First hypnotism session, you get to keep smoking for that week, which is a big reason I did it was I love smoking. So second session, walked out, never had another. Third session, I actually don't remember. I really did not.

I really did go somewhere else. That's great. So, John Mulaney, I want to talk to you about... Marty Short is a good friend of mine, good friend of ours. The greatest. And I loved your sitcom called Mulaney with Marty. Thank you. I did. I loved it. I watched every episode. Thank you very much. Mulaney, I used to watch on the tap over at...

Radford Studios. I would see you guys rehearsing all the time. It was so fun. It was one of the most fun experiences making the show. He speaks so highly of you, just so you know. I love him very much. Yeah, it's mutual. I want to see that, damn it. I apologize. 2014 Fox. Until? From August to November of...

2014. So it was a tight 13? I think they did air all 13. Our final episode aired against the SNL 40th, which I was working on.

And we ended up losing to that, the ratings that night. That's like the, Will, didn't they air the very final episodes of Arrested Development against the Winter Olympics? The opening of the Olympics. Opening ceremonies. They burned all four in a row. And they didn't tell anybody. They were like, get these off our fucking heads. Salt Lake City. Yeah.

Was it? 2006. But, Sean, was that sitcom... Sorry. Sorry, Sean. No, that's okay. Was that something you always wanted to do? Were you passionate about it? I was. I was passionate about... I was and am passionate about multicam. I really like... You and me both. So do we. Yep. And I... I mean, I grew up on them, but also I just find it... And maybe it's also the Saturday Night Live in me and the stand-up in me. I just like...

Three to four cameras and yelling jokes to the back of the room. And an audience, a live audience. And a live audience, yeah. And the six-hour day. Oh, my God. I mean, as the EP and writer and everything, I didn't have that. But watching Elliot Gould and Marty Short and Nassim Pedrad leave at three, I just thought, ooh, that's the life of King. Would you do another one? I would, yeah. Yeah?

-You should. You'd be paid late. -Yeah, you should. We need to crack that. I'm calling you after this session. -It's-- -Who directed most of those episodes? -Do you remember? -I just-- When they're good, they're so great. Andy Ackerman, wonderful. -Oh, yeah. -Seinfeld, yeah. -Yeah, of course. -Seinfeld, many other great things. And then let me ask you this because I've always wanted to know-- I've always wondered about, like, A+ stand-ups like yourself who do all these specials and you tour and you're constantly writing. By the time we see--

your special on Netflix or wherever it is, how many times have you tried out the material and how many rewrites do you go through before we see it? Or are we seeing stuff that you trusted or know will work from the moment you wrote it? Oh, those seem like two questions. Yeah, it's a problem with Sean. Okay, the first part is it depends on how much I toured before the special.

Yeah. So I did that sitcom. Production was shut down in October. I went on the road the next week, and then I taped a special that May called The Comeback Kid for Netflix. That was a pretty short tour. The last special I did, there was about a year of touring before it. This one will be like...

This one will be close to a year, maybe over. I'm on the road steadily right now. How do you like that road stuff, that touring stuff, that staying in a hotel every night? I love it. Really? I like hotel living. Wow.

I really like tour bus living. - You take your own slippers with you when you go to all those hotels? - I bring my own pillow, but I take their pillowcase. What does that mean? - That's- - Jason doesn't like, doesn't, Jason won't walk on the floors of hotels. - He will not walk on the floors of a hotel without a barrier. And then- - Do you put the remote in a Ziploc bag before you use it? - I put it in a pot of boiling water. And then if it still works, we're on it. - We're golden. - But if it doesn't work, then there's no TV.

So you take the pillowcase. Jason basically lives like Howard Hughes. He has, like, at all times, don't show him your fingernails. And he's got, like, 12 layers of Kleenex between himself and anything that he touches. It's disgusting. You're using the, you're bringing your own pillow, but you're using their pillowcase because you want to make. Well, no, what happened, it's worse than that. I took one pillowcase from the first hotel on this tour. Where did it start? We started in...

Portland, Maine, maybe I, I took a pillowcase and it's, it's still on because you like the thread count on that one. You're like, Oh, we're going to keep this. I liked that it was long. And my special foam pillow is longer than a regular pillow too. So it was cool. It was a nice fit. You sleep with the pillow between your knees. Um, I got one of those at an as seen on TV store at Foxwoods recently. Oh, it was like a body pillow. No, it's like a little, uh,

It looks like a yoga block, except it has a skate ramp in it. Sure. And you put it right between those knees. And if you guys are at anyone near the As Seen on TV store at the mall in Foxwoods, the casino, they have them there. And again, that's at the Foxwoods Casino. They have outlet malls and there's an As Seen on TV. Sean's a slow writer, so not too fast. Is there really a store called As Seen on TV? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You've never been in one? You've never seen that? Come on.

Oh, it's the greatest. Truly. It looks like a storage unit. Can I ask you what they sell in there? I mean, the one thing I was really intrigued by this time was something called Battery Daddy, which was, it looked like a CD tower, looked like a compact disc tower for batteries. It was a big, it was almost like a pyramid where all your sizes of batteries had different levels they could clip into. Could you use that? No.

Definitely can't find the double A's when I need them. Now, do you guys keep your batteries in the freezer, by the way? Or am I just married to a crazy person? No, I don't think there's any science behind that. What are you, a photographer? What's going on? I used to, I got one of those wedge pillows where you can slip your arm because my arm was bothering me for a while and I bought it from, I think, like the

in one of these things. Relax the back. And you actually put your hand, it looked like a mousetrap. And then I'd sleep on this thing. Anyway, I did it at a party. Oh, what a catch. Do you have a CPAP when you go to sleep too? Sean, do you? I don't. Sean, do you? My girlfriend, Olivia, we still have the pregnancy pillow, that horseshoe-shaped thing. And I slept in it the other day, and it is fantastic. It's like sleeping in a bumper bowling alley.

I woke up with something. Sean sleeps like in that position they tell you again when a plane's crashing, like with his... He's grabbing his knees. Just in case Scotty wakes up. Real antsy. I never feel rested. I never feel rested. Woo!

I saw an interview with Donny Osmond once where he was extolling the virtues of sleeping on the tray on a commercial flight. Sleep on the... No, that always makes me want to vomit. And did he say, make sure to drink 12 rums before you do it? I love you've got Donny as a rum drinker. Bacardi, Bacardi.

Yeah, not the dark side. Top shelf. Top shelf. Wait, I want to get back to this long professional and personal relationship you have with the guy who let you into the improv group, which is Nick Kroll. The wonderful Nick Kroll. The wonderful Nick Kroll. My best friend, older brother, and everything.

Okay, well, we got it now. We got it in writing and in recording. We got it. Yeah, I know. I sound good. I sound gracious because he led me into the group and now just air it unedited. You've been paying him back ever since. But you guys, no, it did. You guys are like brothers and you guys have worked together so much now over the last however many years since you've known each other. 20. Is that like a thing that you guys consciously say or do you come back together every couple years or you're like...

Or you go, you do your own thing, you're like, "Hey, let's go and do this." I don't know. How does it work? Well, let's see. For a while, we... That's a good question. We don't consciously plan, you know, "Let's work together in 18 months." We love working with each other, so he'd be my first thought for anyone to collaborate with. And then we have things that we've done consistently, like the theater show, "Oh, Hello,"

where we played these two guys, Gil and George. We did that in a variety of media and then did it as a play on Broadway. So like, that's a thing where we will talk about revisiting those characters specifically. And then obviously I work with him on Big Mouth on Netflix, but-

But he's along with Andrew Goldberg and Mark and Jen Flack, and he's a creator EP, so I'm not doing that with him, but I'm lucky enough to be on it. You're on it. Big Mouth for Tracy is a really funny, very popular animated show on Netflix. It's been on for five, four or five years. Tracy might even know that. She might know that. She's already moved on to human resources. She might know. And we will be right back. And now back to the show.

Hey, John, with all the things that you do and do well, how do you decide what to do? Is it informed by some sort of five-year plan that you've got? No, never had a five-year plan. What about next week, next month? I'm a little... I remember a professor in college said, someone was like,

Someone said, just taking it one day at a time. And he said, that's great. Of course, Mulaney lives minute to minute. And like everyone laughed. And I was really like, what? It was odd of him to call that out in the middle of a Jewish studies class. You have no sort of North Star...

Whether you get there or not, at least it's giving you direction and forming... I'd love a knockout obituary and great speeches at the memorial service. But then I can't think...

You know. You just want it to be glowing. What do you want your tombstone to say? I've thought about this recently. Oh. If it could say anything. You know, I was walking around a cemetery in Connecticut where all the... Where you do. Where you do. And the graves are from like the 1700s. And back then people would... I walked by a grave that said, handsome and brave. Dude. Dude.

I'm so... It was like a hero of the revolution, handsome and brave. I was like, I think I'm going to take that. Yes. So this is what I thought. I was thinking the other... I was walking around a cemetery a couple of years ago one night and not a big... Just because it was a better... You know, I get a better view inside the window of the... It doesn't matter. Longer story. Anyway, obviously for a lawyer, I can't say why. Of course. But reading all the gravestones, I was thinking like, I would want to put something like...

He was a cool guy. That's it. Because then if I saw that, I'd be like, who the fuck is that motherfucker? He was a cool guy? You know what I just read? I read that you can now get your...

turned into compost and you can, you know, use it to plant a tree or something. It takes six months to turn it into compost. They just keep mixing the guts with dirt over and over again? You know, that's what happens when you just fucking bury a body. What do you think the body does in the ground by itself? It's a pickup truck worth of compost.

So that just sounds like compost with a dead body in it. It doesn't sound like your body is doing anything. It does. That's a good point. Your gaseous, unembalmed body exploding in usable compost. I would love to see your search history, though, Sean. I did. I looked it up. So would the FBI. Why did you buy all that lime? What's going on? I'd like, you know, I would like it said at my funeral or...

on my gravestone that I, some of my flaws, like he was late a lot and people talked to him about it and he was still late. - Are you still? Are you still late? - I'm getting better at it. I'm getting better at it. - Do you know why you're late?

I think, well, one, Saturday Night Live completely destroyed my relationship with time in that meetings that were supposed to begin at 3 p.m. would begin at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. with no explanation or apology. So after a couple years there, I would meet people 45 minutes late and not think anything.

I needed to say anything regarding where I'd been. Wow. Yeah. And then I think I'm better. I must think I'm better than everyone else. I mean, everyone else, I guess. What about having a kid now? Kid really puts you on a schedule, right? No, a kid put me on a schedule and I have made a big resolution to be on time, be where I stand.

said I'll be when I said I'll be there. And I've actually been good about that. Yeah. Like Sean. Sean said, I'm going to be outside a fire station all day today. And obviously he is. I live in the middle of it. What do you think you're best at being a dad? What do you think you're worst at being a dad? Oh. I know we're early days and we're just trying stuff out. Best at...

Swaddle technique? I am a good swaddler. Yeah. I am a good swaddler. I learned to swaddle somewhat from Ozarks. You give a brief swaddle tutorial, if you recall. John, you're not supposed to watch that. No.

What was your favorite episode? I love the one where you're laundering all the money. Everyone's like, oh my God. People check out the department store, those glory holes, and they swaddle sometimes. They sure do. Is that right? Good at swaddling. I'm good at I know when tummy time is over.

Before little Malcolm gives me that look like, Jesus, man, you're going to get me out of here? I know it's time. I know that big head is starting to get a little tired of bobbing up and down. I probably am worse at overthinking how to approach him as an adolescent, which I really don't need to worry about for the next few years. But I'm constantly running scenarios

of what kind of parent I'll be when he's 11, 12, 13. The combo between being a dad versus being a best friend? Oh, just like, yeah. And will I be, in my mind, I was like, I'm going to be this like semi-stern...

I'm going to be this, like, I'm going to kind of be like my dad with him. And that's all falling apart in four months. I can't imagine ever criticizing anything this kid does or... But who do you, I mean, you know... Don't worry, it'll come. No, I know. You know Olivia. Olivia knows you. Have you guys, has it become clear who's going to be the disciplinarian, who's going to be the nurturer? Oh, that's a good question. She's such a wonderful mother and so nurturing and also... Here it comes. Here it comes. Well...

I mean, right now she's extremely nurturing, but she can be extremely organized. She has packing cubes. That was a good choice of words. Great choice.

Thanks, guys. Now she can listen. So she's very good about organizing. Does that allow you to be... She's very organized, very disciplined in a way that I'm not. However, I don't know when it comes to Malcolm. The ideal I have for myself is that I come home in a suit, which is going to be hard working at home, and that there's some expectation of...

your dad is home and therefore that's intimidating, but I absolutely will never follow through on that. My oldest brother, Dennis, when he had three kids, he would let them with crayons draw all over the walls in every room.

And of course, that would upset his wife, and they would discuss it, and he was like, let them be kids. Let them do anything they want. You can paint over the grant. Would you ever do anything like that? Well, it should be noted also, he came from like Sean. Sean's dad never got mad at them drying on the walls or anything. He didn't get mad at them doing anything. He would just what? Now, the reason is he wasn't there, but...

Well, if they hide the car keys, he'd hate that. That's the thing that would piss him off. Absolutely no chance of escaping. It would really piss him off. Who took my Toomey carry-on? He was always mad. His dad left like... Who took my Weekender? Who took...

His dad left like Kal-El leaving Krypton, like just on his own, like in an escape pod. You know what I mean? I don't know if that references right. Yes, of course I got that. Well, Will and Jason, here's what I wonder. I remember a good friend of mine when we were six to his dad. He was so mad at his dad and he said, sayonara, sucker motherfucker. And...

And his dad acted mad. And as I've gotten older, I'm like, I don't know how I won't laugh if my kid ever tells me off. If Malcolm ever yells at me, it seems like such a funny moment that I won't be able to not laugh. Well, put it this way. I have videos of both my kids having...

Having breakdowns or tantrums at various ages because they're so fucking hilarious and which we I show them now and even in the moment you recognize how funny like Abel's we have one able saying when he was little he was like something is done because you're the worst and you can see him go in the moment go I mean not the worst. I mean, you're kind of great and I love you. So he walks it back in the middle of his thing and

And then the other day, when Abel said to me, the other day I went to wake him up for school, I think I told you guys this, and I go up, and he's 11. His eyes aren't even open yet. And I go up and I go, hey, buddy, we got to get up. We got to get to school. Eyes not even open, and he goes...

"Player's gonna play." I'm like, "What?" "Player's gonna play." They constantly surprise you. That's the thing. And you have no idea how you're gonna react. And you just kind of go with it. And I don't know. Speaking of not knowing how to react, hecklers. What's a good heckler story? 'Cause you're on tour right now, right? Good for you, Sean. Thanks. From scratch, right? Back to the list. I emailed my bullet points. No, but I love those stories. I love heckler stories.

The best I got, I was doing Bonnaroo one year. And I was doing, there was a big comedy tent at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And

Someone said, we've signed you up to do a show at the VIP camping ground, like the organizers of the festival. And I said, what's that about? And they said, just get on the back of this golf cart. And they drove so fast in the back of a golf cart, which is like falling out of a chair forever. And they...

I get to this, like, I get to a plywood stage and there's all these RVs and there's like a micro brew truck giving out beer to these VIP glampers. Oh, you can handle. Yeah. And they had no idea someone had been brought in to do stand up. And they...

They didn't ask for it. They didn't want it. They didn't like it. I was not someone they knew who that was. I was not someone people were excited to see. And I started doing stand-up, and this guy yelled, I think I speak for everyone when I say we'd enjoy silence more than the sound of your voice. Oh, my God. And it was so articulate. It was very polite. Yeah.

How do you heckle back at that? I went, hey, fuck you. Sucker motherfucker. Yeah, sayonara, sucker motherfucker. Jump on the back of the golf cart, speed away.

That'd actually be a good... I might close a special with that. Sayonara, sucker. After a really gracious thank you to the audience, I turn around and then say, sayonara, suckers. It'd be so great if that became your calling card farewell to your audience. Yeah.

This aggressive, shitty little group. I have this masochistic fantasy of doing one set of stand-up, but I would have no idea how to write a session. Have you ever heard of... No, we know. I mean, the very fact that you call it a session is not good. But you know how, like, some... I'm here to perform a session.

Guys, guys, listen up. I'm here to perform. Well, you know like how some music acts, they don't write their own music, but they perform them well. Have you ever heard of a stand-up having a whole set written for he or she and then they do it? Yeah, I mean, there are, and it's kind of more of an older school thing. Like there were performers who had a lot of writers and there were, you know, I really don't hear about it much anymore. There are people who do stand-up who,

also do so many other types of sessions that acting sessions and directing sessions that they eventually have writers. But most people seem to... Why don't you go to an open session night? Are there? Yeah, go to open session. I'd actually like to end stand-up the way my therapist ends sessions, which is, okay, we have to pause now.

Yeah. There you go. And then just walk off stage. Jason, have you seen any good comedy routines lately? Would you like to go see some routines? There's some wonderful routines out there at the Improv, which is short for The Improvisation. They're on Melrose Avenue. I like when people call, like adults call. Like my brother go, I'm doing a play here in Chicago. And he goes, you got play practice today? Yeah.

You mean rehearsal? Is this Dennis with the three kids? Yeah. Hey, I don't want to bug you. I know you're in the middle of play practice, but play practice. I know you're drilling the play. I do like saying practice instead of rehearsal when we're on set. That is fun. I do like yelling at a hockey game, shoot the ball.

I do like that. Oh, man. Put that in your stand-up. Yeah. Oh, God, great idea. Yeah. You're a great start. John Mulaney, we've taken up way too much of your time. Way too much. The tour is from scratch. I know. Why is that? We could talk to Mulaney forever. I know. He's probably got shit to do. What about an encore? How about an encore? We could just do another one where we follow up on everything we didn't finish.

Which was everything. Every thread we start, just every little thread. We like to keep a million tabs open, you know? It's just, I know it's... This browser has a lot of tabs open. We're the worst. We're the worst interviewers. No, this was, you're the greatest. And I wouldn't want it any other way. You know, I mean, I think it was Vivek Murthy who said to you guys, I've had a great time. I've had a really good time on the show. You see the way he brought it all the way back around, you guys? This is what a pro does.

That's how you end a session. Double callbacks. Johnny, we love you. Thank you for your time. Love you guys. This was really fun. You're the best. Thank you for having me. This was really great. Thanks, John. Thanks, buddy. Bye, buddy. Bye, Johnny. Thanks, John. Bye. John Mulaney. He's a smooth operator. So funny. Every time I see him on SNL, even in the sketches, I laugh out loud. He seems like a good guy. I've never met him before. You're right. He is. He's the Sade of comedy. He's a smooth operator.

That's great. Thank you, man. And doesn't stop. Like, he just keeps writing and writing and writing and doing stuff. I just don't. I'm so envious. Like, I don't.

First of all, I can't write. I don't know how to write well. And then just to keep writing all that stuff that works all the time and all those Netflix specials, it's crazy. Yeah, it's a lot of stuff. And touring and touring with stuff for a year or a year and a half and then doing a special. And then immediately, like, you got a sense of his work ethic. His show ends production, you know, this was years ago, and the next week he's out on tour and, like, doing it for a year. Yeah, it's crazy. And then has a special, like, eight months later, like,

And enjoys the hotels and the buses. Like, that's not for me. I wonder how that's going to go now with the kid. You know, like, is he going to be able to be happy about being on the road all the time? Well, we know how that goes. It changes. It changes everything. And you get, like...

Yeah, you know, it's... You better start working on that sitcom. It's hard. It's hard, as you know. The sitcom works for being a dad, though, right? It sure does. Yeah, why doesn't everybody just do a sitcom? Right. Just do that for the first 10 years. Because I heard somebody, they're like, oh, like, I'm working this hard job. A friend of mine in New York, like, works in this office, and, like, my job is so hard. I'm like, why don't you just get a sitcom, and then you're at home all the time? Because you can just order those on Amazon, right? Yeah, why don't you just sign up for them? You're so stupid. Stop.

Stop being such a stupid idiot and get a sitcom. But Mulaney is so, he's been so successful and he just, you know, he's one of those, like, he didn't sort of explode out of nowhere. Like, he just kind of, he kind of built, he built, he built. Like Conan. Like, remember when Conan came on the scene and we were like, who the hell is this guy? He's got the talk show now? It's like, no. Well, if you look at his resume, like, this guy has been a beast for a long time.

for a long time. But the SNL, the ones that Mulaney hosts, the SNLs that Mulaney hosts are always rated huge. Yeah, of course, which is why they keep bringing him back because he's hilarious and he always delivers. And so guess what? Turns out that that works in showbiz, Sean. Yeah. Try being good, Sean. Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit. I just realized. Are we still recording? Yeah. I still have my headphones on. I can hear you. Sean. Yeah. We didn't ask him his favorite color. Fuck.

What the fuck? Text him. Shit. Who got an email address for me? Hang on. No, well, he did ask funny heckling story. Yes. Because I love that shit. I just asked for just a general... That's up there with, what's your craziest audition story? But you know what it is I realize about Sean? Don't you love those stories? No, I do. This is what I love about Sean. This is the reason I like it. This is the reason I like it. It's sashimi. Okay, this is what? Sashimi. And I'm like...

is because Sean likes those things when stuff goes really wrong in normal situations. He loves people freaking out. He used to love bloopers and practical jokes, right? And then those crazy home videos. Right, Sean? Don't you miss it? Do you want to know what happened last Saturday late show at the play? Okay, yeah, of course. I shit you not, it was this long. I'm doing my... I have like seven monologues in the play. In the middle of one I'm playing, there's two or three other actors on stage.

I love that you don't even know how many. Blanked out. Completely blanked out. You did? Yeah. In the middle of my thing, I go, yeah, so I'm telling this story. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And sold out, by the way. And I look at Ethan, and I'm looking at him, and I'm like, fucking please help me. I know my mind went completely, I'm like, no idea where I am. And then he says a line that, skip,

skips about a page and in my head i was like thank you but i don't think i can skip that because there's information the audience needs in order to know the story later right so i was like uh uh uh no that it was that fucking awful that long what about somebody in the wings anybody on book in the wings i know i said and that i said the stage manager she goes i almost came on the god mic and gave you your line i go just do it who gives a shit i'm dying up there

But what about just kind of sauntering over to the wings in character to get a soda? They're in the back of the house. So what did you... So what happened? I fucking, I don't know. You grabbed it and saved it?

And did the audience know, do you think? Yes, for sure. Really? I had a couple friends like, hey, did you? And I was like, yeah. Oh, yeah. Did they ask for any portion of their money back? Like, could you ask for like five bucks back? Here's the scariest part, Sean. Here's the scariest thing. And Sean, we love you. I love you, too. You told us this story verbatim yesterday. Yeah. Why don't you lay down and get your ankles above your heart, Sean. This is so, fuck, we love you. We love you so fucking much. We love you so fucking much.

That's hysterical. Okay. Listen, by the way. Jason and Sean. Just to bring it back full circle. Yeah. I'm going to let you guys know, but I think that I have to go over to the store to check out the... The holes. The dressing rooms or the bathroom because if... For no other reason than... Here it comes. This is a bite. I'm really...

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