Real Friends Classic: 121 - My Sacrificial Clam With Neil Flynn

Wow. Donald, Wow. That's all I say is wow. And on a day when we have Neil Flynn on, like, I'm all excited. I've been pounding energy drinks and here I am. I'm ready to go. And know, Donald Fazon, do you want to tell everyone why you're so late?

I made a mistake and tried to download the new Apple whatever it is. Yeah, the software two hours before. This computer it's pretty old. It's a MacBook Pro. But it's an old computer. You know, it's an older model of the MacBook Pro. Right now, So I am now twenty minutes later.

Yeah, Mary, lay, we got Neil Flynn. He's like sitting in a holding room.

Yeah. We put him in the holding We put him all in the holding cell.

Yeah. They put Neil in a holding cell and he's just sitting there. He's probably gonna keep, probably gonna walk out soon.

I hope Neil doesn't walk out. First of all, how's everybody doing?

We were just chatting. We had a great chat waiting for you.

What were you chatting about?

We were talking about just our lives and what's happening, and how Joelle has a huge Twitter following I didn't know about.

Yeah, did this just happened because of the podcast or.

No, that is Joelle Jowell. What's your handle? We should we should blow it up even more.

Uh yeah, my handle is at joel Monique on the twitters and the Instagrams. I was a writer before I came to you guys, and I would do a lot of critiquing of like television shows and movies. I think my Watchmen interviews are probably one I'm most famous for. Toronto International Film Festival just retweeted those yesterday. But yeah, come talk to me about nerdy and political things. It's good times.

Well you're you're you're a Watchmen fan?

Oh fuck it? From the graphic novel era, the ad show really killed it?

Did you not like the movie?

The movie was my introduction, and I find that it has some things that are very intriguing and interesting about it, But overall, I don't think it holds up to like the quality that is the original graphic novel.

Right, the graphic novel has more.

And I love the TV show Man. I thought that was incredible and it's brilliant.

They want a Peabody this morning and.

So relevant to today when you see these, when you see what's a What's happening in the news, and also like cops with their face masks on. I can't help but think of the Watchman. I was like, wow, yeah, And I saw someone with an article that was like Watchman was just a few months too early or something like that. Someone.

Yeah, they got it right, they got it right, they predicted it.

Listen, I would love to banter with you and tell you how much I smell because I forgot to put on deodorant and uh and I'm I'm glad that we're on a zoom call, so you guys aren't offended, but we got Neil Flynt sitting on the.

Other all right, Well, then hold on one second.

I bought this six eight stories about show. We made about a bunch of.

The stories.

You know, I don't think that you deserve to five six seven eight when you're this late.

I did it already, so I know.

But I just want to submit to the to the to the to the to the Scrubs podcast rule book that you are when you're this late. You don't get to five six seven eight, you're punished.

When when did we get a rule book?

You know, when I was a kid going to camp, I was so nerdy and this was back in a day when they would let you do this. But on the on the school bus to camp, I would sit in the front seat and as the bus. As the bus pulled in for each stop, the bus driver would allow me to operate the mechanism that opened up the school bus door. And I thought I was the coolest mofo in the world as the door operator. Now wait,

But I already five six seven I know.

Well, I'm just trying to lay down the rules. Maybe Joel can can start to make like a bible of sorts of the rules of the show.

Okay, how old were you when all of this happened?

This was last year, and no I don't know daycamp. How old you at day camp? Seven eight?

Ship? Well, then yes, I can understand.

I was five six seven eight. No, I'm just kidding. All right, Let's bring in Neil Flynn, Dan. Push the button.

Ladies and gentlemen give it up.

Four.

Yeah, Hi Neil Flynn, a you fellas.

How's it going.

Going? Well?

Excellent?

There he is? There is Hi Neil. This is a Joel and and I think you met Dan briefly.

Yes. I was teaching him about computers and things like that.

It's so good to see you, man.

It is good to see you.

You too. Donald's literally in the closet, good minute.

I am literally in the closet.

It started. It started Neil because it was it was the best place for sound, because it had all his clothes as a sound dampening thing. And then he realized that he could hide from his family in there. So he goes there sometimes even when we're not recording the podcast, to escape his his children.

This is the this is the safest place in my house. My kids don't find my clothes amusing or interesting enough to want to hang out in the closet, so.

I can't say I ever found my father's clothes amusing. Uh, we are any are any of your kids big enough to wear your clothes? Now?

No? I no, thank good. Well, yeah, well, yeah, I have an eighteen year old with us, but uh, he doesn't necessarily like the clothes I wear. He's more into that supreme style and stuff like that. Me personally, I you know, I've dumbed down my gear a little bit and now I'm a golf shirt and shorts kind of guy. And so what you see behind me is a bunch of golf shirts and then my shorts are over there.

That Neil, that was your probably first and last tour ever of Donald's clothes.

Yeah, well, you know you asked, but I do. I do remember. I do remember when my father's clothes became interesting to me and I wanted to wear all of his gear. And I would go into my dad's closet and take his shirts which were oversized for me, which at the time was really cool. And he had like a bunch of designer things that I didn't you know, he had like back in the day when jabbou was really popular, or you know, shirts like that, And I remember going.

In his closet, Tini, do you remember those?

No? I remember, No, I don't.

I was like the sweatsuit of sweatsuit, okay, but.

I remember going in his closet and taking a really expense shirt and wearing it outside and ripping it and being like, oh shit, my dad's gonna kill me. My dad's gonna kill me, and having to tell him. And my dad didn't come home all the time, right, So my dad would leave in the morning and then come back maybe you know, three four days later. You know, that's just how my dad rolls. And and I remember having to wait for him to come home to tell him that I ripped one of his really expensive shirts.

Then find ripped the shirt.

Like playing playing something stupid, like we were playing in on a jungle gym and we would play tag where you couldn't touch the ground sure, and the jungle gym was huge, was big enough for you to jump from you know, the slide to you know, uh, one of the houses or wooden houses or some.

Shit, yeah, or plant you were a kid.

Yeah, I was a kid wearing my dad's oversized, expensive shirt.

And what made you think, like, you know what I'm gonna rock to the jungle gym today. Is Dad's expensive shirt?

I just, you know, because everybody was wearing jabot, you know what I mean. And I thought, well, if he has a shirt, I can go outside and I'll have this really crisp and it was like and it was fucked up to the fuck up thing was it was like in plastic and had just come from the cleaners and stuff. So I kind of knew. I kind of knew, like dude took the plastic off.

I told.

And I made a mistake. It's one of those things like I watched my kids now do to ship where it's like, what were you thinking, why would why would you even do something like that? And their answer is, I don't know. And that was my answer to I don't know, ye just impulsive, impulsive.

My sister when I went close shopping, I remember I was in like fourth grade and it was the height of I don't know if you remember guest jeans. It was like the height of guest jeans and for mostly for women. I think at the time, I'm guessing because my sister convinced me and my mom that I should wear guest jeans as well. In fourth grade, and they were very uh you could always tell they were guest jeans because they had a triangle on the on the back,

Because they were considered like girl jeans or.

A girl a girl and expensive I think they were. They were like I remember them being like fifty bucks or maybe one hundred bucks whatever whatever they I mean, it was like too expensive for a kid to have anyway, but I think probably fourth grader. I don't know, I don't know. I regret it to this day. I when Donald start talking about his story, I felt the pain in my heart from literally the It's like it's like it's like what's his name on on the on the

Yeah, now you have some sort of knockoff guess jeans.

Yeah exactly, but it's worse, exactly, Neil. Now I'm wearing black market guess Jeane. Well, Neil, thank you for coming on. We Donald and I started started doing this silly little thing, and both of us when we post about it on Instagram and Twitter, I would say that like sixty percent of the comments people are right, right, are when are you having Neil Flynn on? So you are very beloved by beloved or beloved by either one by the people either one.

It's like divisive and divisive all of a sudden, divisive became divisive because that's how Barack Obama pronounced it. Really, yeah, people say divisive. I had never heard it pronounced that way before Obama said, Well, you.

Know, if Obama said it Yeah, now I'm switching.

Now, I'm switching out.

I'm switching It's a few years late, but I'm changing, switching it up, switching it up.

If he starts wearing JBO shirts, That's what I'm gonna do too.

He probably does wear guest jeans, though he's a stylish guy. I don't know if they're still in style anymore.

I don't know if. Yeah, I'm not sure how big Guess is. I don't think I know somewhere somebody the CEO of guesses like, we're still ahead, We're still ahead.

Yeah, we're going to get Donald know how we're gonna get send guest Gene in the mail, because sometimes when we mention things on here, we get sent in the mail. I got a care package from Omission. I have to tell him, is Neil. It's really lame in Hollywood to say, but I don't eat gluten. But I love beer, and so there's a really good pale ale called Omission, which

I've yet to receive any of this.

When you come to school in the backpack. I'm going to make fun of you. You got a mission bagpack.

You're gonna be like, Zach, Please tell me you're not wearing a gluten free beer backpack.

I don't really even know what that is. Gluten, but I think you can get away with not etene gluten in Hollywood.

Yeah, you can. It's just when I you know, this podcast has listened all over the world, and whenever I mentioned it, I cringe because I know people are like, oh, what a Hollywood tool.

Not even you know, I thought that sparkling water was universal. You go in like Texas and you'll be like, can I get some sparkling water? And they'll be like, we don't have that, say club soda. Maybe I went to someplace and they were like, we do have club soda.

Yes, what's the clubference between club soda and sparkling water? Does anybody know.

Club soda is carbon and sparkling water is sodium? If I no.

No, Neil knows.

No, You're right. I have a cat. Okay, And of course they listen when you're saying no, yeah, but he's in my.

Oh you were saying no to the cat. I thought you were. I thought you were heavily. I thought you were very clearly opining on.

Donald's no no, no no.

And then I was waiting for you to go into your explanation, but you never did.

Don't try to give me that club soda story.

All right, Wait, Joelle is letting us know. Club soda is artificially infused with carbon and mineral salts. Similarly, seltzer is artificially carbonated but generally does not contain any added minerals. Sparkling mineral water, on the other hand, is naturally carbonated from a spring or well, how is something naturally carbonated?

I don't know, dude, carbon get into it.

I don't know.

I guess.

Well, that was a very thorough explanation, but I still didn't understand it.

I feel like you cussed and cut and pasted that though from from.

She didn't just freehand type that. She just got it off the web.

You know, speaking of places that don't have things. We're in some backwoods plays touring with a show and stopped a kind of a dairy queen type of thing, but sort of in love a forest for some reason, and one of the girls with us, she's going to get a cheeseburger. She says, what kind of cheese do you have? I think this is somewhere in Michigan, and the person literally goes, cheese. It's square, it's orange, and it's flat.

Kind of cheese, it's it's cheese.

So all right, Neil, I was gonna do it. You got to.

Do you do it, You do it?

No, no, no, go ahead. I was just gonna be. I was just gonna be, like, I was just gonna say this, Neil, You're one of the few people in the history of television, there's like a handful of people that went from a show that ran for eight years to a show that ran for eleven year. What did the middle eleven nine to a nine year?

Seventeen years?

Seventeen years straight on television?

Man, I know?

And that actually and then actually knew you went onto another show right away, right, So you did eight and then that one didn't last, right, But you did eighteen years in a row on TV? Yeah, yes, that might be a record that You've got to be on a very short list.

It has to be so.

But if there is whatever the list is, however long it is, I am the least famous person on it.

That's not true.

I agree, I disagree.

No, that's true, But it's just you know, I was trying for a long time before Scrubs came along, and then I finally the door opened, you know, and I got let into the party, and luckily enough I just stayed.

Now tell us Neil, that's a good segue into because whenever we have the cast members on, we try and we've all sort of told our stories of of how he got on the show. And Bill sold a really funny story about you and which I'll let you tell or your version of it, because he was talking about how you initially read for Cox and and then when he said you wanted to be the janitor, you said something like, but I'll still have a stethoscope, right, or.

Something that, yeah, well build things do embellish his story?

Oh really? Yeah, over time, I know if you were if if you've heard a Bill story like at the beginning, and then what it's like in two years. It's like the ultimate game of telephone. It's become something exaggerated.

But yes, and I thought before what kind of person just takes a story and changes, it improves it. Possibly a comedy writer. It kind of makes sense.

But Neil, what was going on for you before? Like what were you up to before Scrubs? And then how did you come to be on Scrubs?

Well, I can I just say you had done a bunch of movies though in Chicago and stuff like that.

Like small parts, small nothing of any significance.

But the baseball movie that you did. You were one of the key players in that movie, Rookie of the Year.

It is correct, right right, And yeah, the out part in Major League as well. I was doing baseball movies only you know, I went into not even read but years ago whenever they would have made eight men out. I somehow got a chance to be one of the baseball players. And I went in and she says, so do you baseball? I said yeah, She said do you really? You know, like she pushed me. I said, well, it's not like I could have been a pro, you know, And I saw her face fall. She lost interest in me.

Yeah.

It sounds like doing the movie throwing the ball back and forth. We only got pros for this, you know. Anyway, So I wasn't in that baseball movie, but I was just doing little parts of We're Getting Get I was starting to get guest star on things a little bit, and and then this came up. I actually, I feel like I've told this story before. It Is it okay to repeat yourself?

Yes? Yeah, man, Our fans might not know it, and I'm sure they'll love the story.

Okay. I was doing guest stars on things, and whereas the first half of my career i'd been kind of a straight actor, kind of a drama leaning, drifted over into the comedy side, and thank goodness I did, because that's where things opened up. I had done an episode of Drew Carrey and Christa Miller was on that show, and shortly afterwards friends of mine said that they're going out to dinner with Chris Miller and her new husband, who turns out was Bill Lawrence. And I said, years ago,

Okay.

Anyways, so then I read the Doctor Cox and he said that was good. You're not going to get this part. I already know who I'm going to give it to. I said, oh, well, that's you know, fair enough, and he says, but you want to read this. He hands me two pages and it's the scene with the janitor and JD at the door, and he goes, good, you want to do that? He said, sure, you know, it's a job. As a job, that's all I've been doing. It's five hundred bucks or whatever it is for the

What was amazing for for me watching you was Bill's respect for how understandably for how funny you were, because you know, with everyone else he would, you know, the rule on Scrubs was kind of like, okay, you know, make sure you get it as written and then if you guys have time, you can you can mess around a little bit, and and and and you know, and and and and we all did that. We all would

Think I ever left with you.

Sorry, that's what I meant to say. I was just I'd never really worked with anyone like that. I never worked I mean, I was so blown away by you because I had never I mean it was my first big job, obviously, but even in my other stuff I had done, I had never worked with someone who could think so quickly on their feet and would just be adding stuff that was, with all due respect to Bill, even finnier than what was written on the page.

And Bill said, if it's funnier than what I wrote, that's fine. People will think I wrote it. Yeah, So he was fine with that. Ye. Well, I appreciate that compliment. And it was a I think, very rare situation at that unfolded the way it did. And when when that show ended and I went on to the middle, I said, well, this is great. The only the only bad part will be if they're sticklers about the script, because I'm not used to that, and they were, and I had a lot more to say.

That must have been so frustrating for you, because I mean, I just can't one thing about Bill. We always joke about his ego and how competitive he is, but he really always he was very open to people contributing. That's not to say, you know, he was the editor ultimately, and he would decide what was in and what wasn't and and sometimes we thought stuff was hilarious that he wouldn't use it. But he was very open to everybody collaborating.

Well, you know, the difference if it's a racehorses running around and someone says, okay, I can see that you're very fast. This is a farm, we need you to pull that plot running gets it. The difference is the tone of the show Scrubs, even though it had it's nice, uh, you know, it could turn on a dime and be heartfelt and sincere in that other than that, and much of it it wasn't very grounded. It was well all the fantas season. I mean it was very and the

Right right right where in One of your specialties was just I remember that Bill told the story about you getting the one thing you improve that he kept all in about getting into a fight with a with a chicken.

Do you remember that, Yeah, it was a duck. I think a duck. I think I feel like that was written or partly written or mostly written, and I might have gone off a little bit, but I think.

I think the start of it may have been. But as I recall you, as you did so many times hilariously, would just go off with it, and so, you know a lot of times we'd be like, this is hilarious. I don't know if Bill's gonna put this in the show or not, but on set we're all fucking cracking up. And then and then it almost invariably you'd see the

Well wow, okay, then I remember I remember an episode and they wound up changing the episode. But the storyline between the two of you was about a piece of fruit and that you had never tried before, that that

Oh, you remember this reminds me yesterday because Zach sent me an episode of this thing to Live Listen with John McGinley. Yeah, and it came up, what episode wasn't the Janitor in? Yes?

Yeah?

Was that the episode that is it cups?

Yes, I think I because there was an outtake of me wiping out on a scooter coming in the front door. Of the hospital, but that had never aired because I was That was the first season and I was edited out of it, and that's the only time that happened.

I knew it. I knew, I knew it.

I knew I knew as the worst memory in the world. Remembered something because I thought, I thought the story was so funny.

The fruit story was so funny, and it was like a peach or a plump, and you kept improvising different fruits when.

You were telling that story. I have and I still have no memory whatsoever of a fruit and a plot line about fruit because I wasn't in it, so I blocked it out of my.

SPIKEE Neil one of my favorite I have two favorite moments that always come into mind when I think of laughing with you. The first is in the Wizard of Oz episode when you and I did this whole long riff about about seeing a manatee under the hospital, and then you said, I said, is there some sort of underground canal system or something? I think I I think I saw a manatee And you said, was his name Julian?

That was good. The writers though, I don't know, no.

No, that was all me and you just being silly again. It was one of those things where we were like, I don't think this is ever going to be in the show, but we were just cracking each other up about there's a manatee under the hospital and has a name, and you you're familiar with his social behavior.

This is what I'm talking about, being able to wing it. Yeah, I couldn't have thrown that in in the middle. I was working on Corey Mike. It was good. There's a man he lives underground one that yeah, you do, go ahead, it's uh, it's it's this.

It's finger thumb finger.

If you guys want to watch on the on the scrubs gag reel blipper reel that you can find on YouTube. I forgot what season it is. But Neil, the janitor as wife had made me scrubs short shorts and and he's like, look, I really want you to wear these two work, and I'm like, I'm like, I'm I'm a I'm a doctor. I can't wear short shorts to work.

A pair of scrubs cut off really high.

Yeah, it was so high like my balls would have hung out of them. And then Neil goes, the good Lord didn't bless my wife with all ten fingers. She only has pointer on one hand and thumb pinky on the other, meaning that that it had been really hard for her to make these short shorts, and I was disrespecting her. I didn't wear them, and I just couldn't make it through. I could not make it through with with Neil going pointer and thumbinky.

That's, by the way I life. That probably doesn't exist.

No, yeah, she didn't. She didn't exist because you get married at the end of the at.

The end of this true, that's true. And Neil, you know, Neil, we've been joking this first season. It's down like, you know, we haven't seen these in twenty years, and as I'm sure you haven't. And you know Bill, you know one of the Bill isms that he always says is, you know, I was debating season one if the Janitor was just

Bill, I watched that yesterday, that that was a moment that was added to the script that wasn't in there. Yeah, and that you part for Franklin.

I think that might be the one of the only times I mean you might.

Now he dressed up like the bunny. Remember Franklin dressed up like a bunny.

No, I'm not I'm not saying that Franklin wasn't in the show more. I'm saying where it's a really funny moment where Neil goes, uh, what do you want to what do you want to go to a baseball game and have popcorn? And then Gg walks away like stop messing with me, and then he pulls the two tickets out of his shirt. He's like the last time I reached out and I was laughing out loud, going, do you think that's the only time in Scrubs history that the janitor ever like made a genuine appeal to JD?

You know what if watching that, I thought, I don't think I played that right because I said it very sarcastically. So of course you walked away. You know, we want to do go to a baseball game and we get up, But I probably should have said, well, would you like to go to a baseball game with me and we can share popcorn? I mean, it's something that sounds a little bit more sincere.

Right, But JD had to you know, it had to be on the line because JD had to be like, stop fucking with me, roll his eyes and walk away.

Right, Or maybe the janitor just has no skill at offering an invitation. They all come out very sarcasting, right, would you like to come to a party with me? I guess would you marry me? Please?

So what was the troop that you were doing improv with Neil that Bill saw you early in the early days.

We were called beer shark Mice and it was at the Io West, which no longer exists a theater, but we must have done it for as it turns out, fifteen eighteen years something like that. It was crazy.

Wow.

We throw out the names real quick. Pete Honey, Dave Keckner, Pat Finn, Mike Coleman, Paul Valancourt. I hope I didn't forget anybody when I first moved out here, removed out here after five years in Chicago. We had been doing it out of theater in Chicago. Not the same group, but all those individuals with different and he'd only put just put a group together out here when they aw Sharon who owns it, opened up a branch out here,

And what was that? Was there a specific game or that you guys would play or structure of your.

Improv Uh no, not really, but we didn't do games. That's a different approach. It was there's something called a herald that is a long form. We would get out there, takes yestion and go for half hour. Yeah, and we didn't do that, but it was along those lines, just take a suggestion and then the audience has done particularly, that's amazing. You just rolled for half far. It was a good group, and it was it's not necessarily dead now, but it was great fun and a great thing to do,

Oh, I have no doubt that you would sell out.

Man.

People love seeing you, and you were so good at it. I mean I remember thinking that when we're doing Scrubs, that that just cracking up with the stuff you would come up with and going out. I would love to go see one of your improv shows. We may have gone on when we weren't involved. There no, just maybe he came with when.

We were doing when we were doing scrubs. Were you doing this show too? Were you doing the improv show?

Want?

I feel like I must have come once.

I don't think you did, because I didn't, you know, feel strongly about this. But people had heard that this was going on and it went on for all the years of the Scrubs, and so people would often I don't know if they're just striking up a conversation or being you know, they really meant it when you do that show years? What time it like for the literally like for the fiftieth time, I'm saying to somebody, Saturday night, eight o'clock, I owe theater, and as far as I recall,

Yeah, I saw a video or something I saw.

Yeah, that's what we did. We saw a video. Bill showed us a video.

Maybe that's what it was. Bill was sort of was showing us a video of you. And because I feel like I have a somewhere in my brain memory.

Yea, and there was you and somebody on stage and it was like, uh, where you were a drill not a drill sergeant, but something like that, where you were an army and I just remember it a long time.

It was you remember that improv from twenty years ago?

Right? Yeah, that's uh, no one ever. Maybe it's possible, but pretty much you never remember seeing someone will say, I shay you guys, don'verybody once you were firement and I don't I remember that?

Shall we get into the show, So, Neil, what we do is we just kind of talked through the episode and point out things that made us laugh or or or or just any thoughts we have. But we should probably take a break, right, Joelle, I got a break, Neil. This is a real show. We have commercials and.

Shit, I know I heard. I'm very impressed.

Yes, no joking around when it comes to being real, right, Donald, I mean, now this is the real deal. This is like a real radio show.

Well, I mean a real podcast, a real podcast. Yeah, yeah, that's how you want to.

All right, tell the people we'll be right back.

Donald, you already did.

Okay, we'll be right back. Alrighty, we're back. We're with Neil Flynn. Everybody the people spoke, they said Neil Flynn, bring on Neil Flynn, and we got him.

Has everybody else been here? Uh? You are? No.

Ken has not been on the Jenkins, But we've had the other lead cast members.

Yeah, we had Judy on, We've had Johnny on, We've had Sarah on. We now have you on?

We had Bill on Christa, you know, speaking of Ken Jenkins. I am just but you know when we started the show, he was the old guy. Yeah without you, no offense, but clearly yeah, that's how we thought of him. And you even more than I because you're younger than I am. I'm almost that age.

You're almost the age.

Yes, I'm months away. And I think Johnny ce' is a little older than me, so I think he probably is that age. Yeah.

Wow, I haven't since I haven't seen well.

The last time I saw him was when we did the uh the reunion thing. He looked great, and he looked amazing. Yeah, I want.

To get him to come on this. When we did some we had some sort of group email about hey, do you guys want to do X, Y or Z and and everyone was like sure, sure, sure, you know we we almost all always say yes because it means we get to all get together and have a drink and make each other laugh. And and Ken was like I'm moving. I I've got a lot going on. And I was like my feelings were I mean, I know it wasn't personal, but I was old like, Ken, you know you can you can take a couple of hours

I got ship to do. It sounds it sounds like work. I got shipped to do.

And then and it was kind of a Kurt goodbye. It was like it was like very Kelso was liked, but good to hear from you all.

I remember that. But I find it interesting that it was an email and you've put a voice to it of a grouchy old man.

The funny thing is about like people always ask you, like, what what people cast members are like? And I said the most different from his character was Ken Jenkins, because he was the sweetest man you ever met in your whole life, and he was playing this you know, tough jerk.

Yes, And I noticed that on the episode that it was early on obviously the first season, and everyone was still a little bit one dimensional. I don't want to say that's not exactly true, but Ken was. I'm like, look how mean Ken is being? Like in the pilot when he turned into a demon for a minute, he was still in that mode of well, guess what sport? Nobody cares that sort of thing. By the end, he was like this kindly old doddering man's having a nice uff.

Yeah, and also at the bar and the Bahamas, like you know, he began I think Bill finally, like evell one episode. Early on here in season one, we showed that back he back in the day, used to write love songs on the guitar to his wife. I think Bill was beginning to plant seeds of him having a softer side. But you're right, by the end of the season. By the end of the show, he was a sweetheart.

Or more of a seat and uh like Ted was sort of his best friend, wasn't he.

They were like at the end of the show. Yeah, in this one he calls him Ned.

He's still all these years that we assume that that Ted has been working for him, he still doesn't know his name. He calls him Ned.

Yeah, but that went away. I mean, yeah, they became kind of buddies.

I found it very crazy. I thought it was crazy that Ted has been plotting against Kelso.

Yeah, so long he's hired hit man.

He's right, He's like, I know a hit man. You and I we can do it.

That was a really funny part of this episode where we have that long, uncomfortable laugh because he mentions that he knows a guy who can end it all, and then we have that long, uncomfortable laugh and then he's like, no, seriously, just one phone call. So that means that Sammy has sam Ted has found a He's got a hit man ready to go whenever the time is right.

He just needs somebody to He needs somebody to be like, no, you're right, we should kill this fucker.

He just needs it. Yeah, someone's second. The emotion it was, I hadn't seen Sam's face since he passed away, and it was nice, but you know, strange, see Sam.

Yeah, man, we've been we've been talking about that on the podcast and and how obviously it's caused me to look even closer at his work on the show and just how incredibly funny he was. We recently just watched an episode where he and Judy. I don't know if you remember this one, Neil or he and Judy serenade a patient and sing this beautiful harmony together and it

Yeah, that was his character added a nice came in handy. You know, the so many shows that succeed, I think build a world of supporting characters and that you can go to or just like probably number one would be The Simpsons. They have like a poster and there's two hundred recognizable characters in that. Yeah. Of course, give me thirty years and maybe I could do that too with a TV show. They've had a lot of time to add characters. But but Scribbers did a good job of that.

Yeah, and you know Bill, Bill always called him his assassins, those people like you know Bob Condenen or Matt Winston, or or Phil Lewis who played Hooge, Rob Mashio who be Kate. Well Rob had a bigger part than those guys. But I mean just mean, like you know, think about Phil Lewis who came on and would do I don't know how many episodes he did total, but.

He's directing now.

Yeah, yeah, he's yeah, he's doing very well as a Yeah.

I mean, I don't know if if this happens to you, Donald, but I'll be walking down the street and people say, hey, love on the Showhoch is crazy, and it's it's like a little slogan about Phil Lewis's character, and he must have done like a handful. I mean that's the amount of influence. Sorry, that's the amount of impact he had on fans because they were just like they loved him so much.

Well, remember it started off as Turner and Hooch, where Tom Hanks's brother came on as Turner and Phil Lewis played Hooch and they had this whole little adventure that they went on together as Turner and Hooch in the hospital they got Yeah, they somehow got paired together. One of them was a medical doc and one of them was a surgeon, and they would tag team a bunch of patients.

Right, and if it was a play elaborate way for the writers to get a Turner and Hoo's show it.

Right, but they got Tom Hanks's brother to play the Turner character just like in the movie. Right, And then somehow it turned into this whole story with Phil coming back as this crazy ass doctor. But when it originally happens, the two of them are you know, he's not crazy or anything like that. Then it turned into it turned into us joking around like, oh who just crazy? Who just so crazy? And then by the end of it is not that.

Genuinely crazy people people love that, but no, no, no, not joking.

Who is fucking dangerous? Yeah?

Like and then and then there was an episode where you put like someone was it me? Or you put bullyon cubes in the shower head.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which funny y'all put in the shower and we're sitting there trying.

Like he's like I want.

Him with him with the crack lighter that goes like you know six.

That's a very popular gift. I always use hooch with like a six inch lighter flame.

Yeah.

By the way, you remember a funny thing about Tom Hanks's brother who was on the show. He did the voice for one of the toy story things, not not the not the movies, but like I don't know if

There, Just a little trivia.

Elliott is into some kinky stuff, right, I mean, I just realized that this is a runner through the series. This episode opens up with her talking to Scott Foley about being wanting to be called a bad girl, and they're gonna go shopping or stop by her house for a schoolgirl outfit. And then I just started thinking about all these times in the in the series where Elliott's got some some some some kink. She likes to role play.

Yeah, she likes it, the dirty stuff. She like it, the dirty talk. I think that's even one of my lines in the show. Oh she likeed the dirty talk really this episode. No, not in this episode, but like later on in the series, I know, I say something, and.

Then later on when she and Folly are making out, she's like say intercourse, like she's got these weird kings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's that's I I yeah, I remember.

There was one where I was like an apple thief. I had to be. I was a part of one of their I don't know if that was a fantasy or if it was real, but there was.

One where she climbed up on top of me on on one of the on a surgical table.

Yeah, that was a fantasy though, That was a fantasy.

Oh yeah, of course.

Do you remember she had a nurse thing on a cross things and they had to post they had to change it to green because no, you don't use the Red crosses.

Oh that's funny.

That's a little bit of trivia.

You can't have sex on a surgical table with the red cross up. We're not going to approve that.

But if you got the green one, which is the medical marijuana one, it's all good. It's all good.

Now, it's funny. The Green Cross in the UK just means pharmacy or normal pharmacy. And now you live in we live in California. For those of you who don't have dispensaries, wherever you are, everywhere there's a medical dispensary, recreational or or or medical. It's the Green Cross. So it's funny. When I first moved and spent some time in London, I was like, wow, they have a lot of dispensary on every corner.

I laughed out loud at Alma, right, bring hey, I hope, let's make this quick. I got tickets to bring in a noise bringing the funk, and I don't want to miss the noise.

Loma.

She had a couple of good lines in that episode.

Yeah, she really, she really does nail it every time. Now, like you, you're absolutely right about the cast of characters that came after the Core seven, you know what I mean. It's like everyone always seemed to nail their jokes, you know what I mean. And and and it's it's a I don't know if Bill had a thing where it's like, if you didn't nail the jokes, she didn't come back. But that is kind of the thing.

If you're not funny, you're not coming back.

I would love to know the people that he had.

We don't want to We don't want him out of.

Oh I'm not gonna put on this is conversation to have with him one at another time. But I would know.

But I mean, you can know in your head there were there were people that that could have easily what happened with Neil is is the ultimate example.

Neil.

Neil was in the pilot and Bill was like, I'm making this guy series regular. Whereas whereas there's people who did one or two and he's like, all right, well it was nice meeting you. Yeah, what about you skipped something and I wanted to talk to you about it. When when Judy touches your belly and goes bink and who's she goes, who's your new friend?

I didn't. I didn't. I didn't want to that.

Oh you wanted to skip that?

I didn't want to skip it. But you know, I when I when I was watching the show, I was like, and this is where my eating habits changed, you know what I mean?

Like, but but I have a question because I think it's just a story point. Because when they cut to you later running with Johnny C and you're in the gym, you look fit as hell. So this didn't come out of the writers being like, oh, Donald's gained a few did it?

Listen? Didn't look like you had listen back then. I was one hundred and seventy five pounds when we started the show, right, I got up to one hundred and ninety pounds, and everybody I could feel the you know where my clothes didn't fit the same and.

Everything like that season Why does this happen?

Yeah? Around season one, you know, you get comfortable when you're working and stuff like that, and I remember thinking, you know, wow, I guess I look big on camera now. And you know, I remember dieting and doing all of these things right, and at one point, I, you know, I guess I gained some weight. But this was this became an issue for me as time went on where I didn't think about weight up until scrubgs like, I didn't give a shit about how I looked or how

And people, wait, so so did anyone ever say anything to you like you need to lose weight?

No? But I once heard and I'm gonna call Sarah out on this, but I once heard Sarah. You know, while we were filming talking to a bunch of people like yo, somebody hit me up on a chat line and was like, yo, is Donald Faison on a Krispy Kreme diet? And I was like yo, And I remember being like, yeah, I am on a Krispy Kreme diet, but it gives a shit, dude.

It's funny because the story of Turk in the show is that doctors get so busy they don't have time to exercise. They're stress eating, and it's kind of what happened to you as an actor on the show. We had crazy hours. There's a giant craft service table with donuts, and you know.

And I love first of all, I love donuts. Let's let's keep it one hundred, like, is that your favorite thing? For my birthday, my wife bought me a donut machine.

Dude.

You think I'm fucking bullshitting. She went on Amazon and got me a commercial grade donut making machine, dude.

And I found they go down like the little just.

Like at Krispy Kreme. And I was like, you got that shit and she was like yeah. I was like, we got to look at the dimensions on how big this thing is. This shit's like fifty six inches, like it's like a six foot whatever six feet is. It's like a six foot long track and it makes donut. It doesn't make like one donut at a time, it makes like seven, It makes a dozen donuts at a fucking time. Dude, and I'm like, holy shit. I even sent her. I was like, Babe, is there a way

It hasn't come yet.

It hasn't come yet.

Oh my god.

The way it happened was because I'm going through Amazon. And you know how once you once you buy something on Amazon, it hits you with if you like this, if you since you bought this, you know you might like this. And I was like, hold up, why are all these donut machines showing up?

Well, that's not gonna help you, diet, bro, if you have a donut machine in your house.

I've come up with a I come up with an idea on what I want to do with this with said donut machine, what I am going to make Donnie's donuts, Okay, and I'm gonna sell donuts to the masses. I'm gonna I'll sell about you know, it makes like a dozen donuts at a time. I'll sell I don't know, maybe five dozen donuts a day.

Okay, out the out of your front door.

Not out of the front door. I'll do it on sets or something like that where i'll you know where I'll you know, if you have a and you're.

Not gonna have the charity, you're just gonna pocket that money, right, this is your side.

Yeah, man, I gotta pay for that donut machine. That shit costs a lot of money. I know my wife bought it for me, but you know it comes out of my motherfucking pocket.

Now, don't funny. I never realized until now. Is like when you have a joint bank account with your wife and or your partner whatever, and they give you like a really expensive present, is part of you like, uh yeah, but what the fuck? Yeah?

I'm sure my wife thinks that way too, Like how much the first thing she says every time I buy something? How much did it costs? Don't worry about it? Don't worry about you know, don't you worry about it. I've looked, I got I had the opportunity to see how much the donut machine costs.

Because I can't wait to see the commercial doughnut machine in your house.

When this is all said and done, I invite you all over, come over, I'll make donuts for you.

All right, Well, I didn't realize it was a sore spot for you and uh so, But anyway, it was written in the script that Turk has gained some pounds.

Yeah.

Well it turns out that Turk gets diabetes too because of his eating habits, and you know me like yeah, like uh yeah. Later on Turk gets diabetes. Literally my diabetes, my diabetes. But I remember thinking, you know, your real life would somehow wind it like I don't have diabetes, but your real life would somehow wind its way up into the script, you know what I mean. And I remember I started I was losing my hair at a

He just has a big, big, receding hairline. But it looks good anyway. I like the way it looks. He just made me think you could do a mohawk, which would be cool.

It would be like really thin in the front and then it would get really thick in the back though, which was not really the dopest mohawk on the planet. But anyway, I remember being I remember him doing that and being like, wait, hold on a second, Bill thinks

Well, don't you feel that way now?

Though?

Still when you when you get jobs that like when you did when you run Immergions for a year, did you feel like that you wanted to be in good shape for the camera?

No, I just wanted to look fresh in the face for camera. Like these are things that I've like, I've learned that my drinking habits and my marijuana habits have made it so that, you know, if I don't take time off from it, you can see it in my face, you know what I mean. I look at pictures at us when we were kids and and when we would go to the parties and everything like that, and we'd drink at the parties, and you could literally see in

Yeah.

And as I've gotten older, that's lasted much longer than it. You know what I mean. If I drink on Tuesday, you know, I gotta wait until like Friday, until it's all gone out of my out of my face, so I have, you know, real big bags under my eyes. And same thing with smoking. So when I went and did emergence, I cut out all booze and alcohol for for for a long period of time. I mean boos in marijuana for a long period of time.

And I don't know what one did.

No one didn't no, no, no one watched it.

It didn't emerge, it did.

It didn't emerge the way the way I wanted to.

You know, Neil, both Donald and I, as you know, because you helped me with some press, which I really appreciate. As you know, Donald and I both had ABC shows and unlike the Middle, they both completely bombed.

Yeah, they didn't make it? Was it the Medal? Was the ABC show?

Right? Yeah?

Yeah?

Yeah? Was it?

ABC Studios? Also Born and Brothers Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers for ABC.

Wow.

Yeah. We were ABC for NBC or originally and NBC was like, no, we're going to pass on it, and ABC was like, oh, well we'll pick it up. And we went a full season.

And are you still sad about it? How are you feeling about it?

I'm fine? You know, I how long?

How long? Like how long do you pout about something like that? Well, like I have bad news, I think I pout for like a few days and I'm like, all right, fuge it.

Yeah.

I didn't pout that long about this one. I loved the show, and I loved the cast members, and I loved working with everyone. But it was in Jersey and not that I have something not that I have something wrong with Jersey, but coming out of a pandemic and going back to work in New Jersey and leaving.

On behalf of the Garden State. I think the point is that you didn't want to be separated from your family.

Wasn't that like let me if you, if you let me finish coming out of a pandemic and going back to Jersey, which I had a great time in Jersey and I love Jersey and leaving my kids back in Los Angeles again, it would fuck them up, you know what I mean.

I understand that I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to uh do a show in another state. Maybe the time will come, but I think I don't know.

I agree Neil, I I wouldn't. I would do a film obviously anywhere, but I wouldn't sign on. I don't think, and I mean I'll mark mark my words. I'm sure there'll be an occasion where I might change my mind, but right now I think to commit long term to something, it would be New York or LA where where I'm based and I have you know, and I'm I'm like Donald, I don't have kids yet, but I'm still in a place where I don't. I don't want to go move to to Stad where I always choose DoD as my

It's straight out of coming, a trading place places where dan Ackroyd's at the pawn shop trying to sell the watch, and the dude's like fifty bucks. He's like fifty bucks. No, this is at such and such. It tells time in New York, London, La and stud.

I think it's like the Aspen of the Alps. It's like a fancy ski town, which, by by the way, it was a horrible example for my story because I should have picked a place no one wants to live. Maybe I would like to live in the Aspen of the Alps. Are going to take a quick break and then Neil, we take a guest with the show. Who's gonna have an awesome question for one of us?

I'll bet we watch how with that?

And I like that theme. By the way, it's very churchy.

Yeah, yes, yes, we speaking of churchy. Dude. Do you remember the church episode where we did it in the hospital cafeteria and you had the freaking uh straw hat?

What was it?

What kind of hat is that where it's like a straw hat? Really go with it?

Yeah, I think you had, Neil. I think you had a tambourine.

As I recall that could be golly, Samuel Centers in the house.

That's Samuel Center Joelle, do you have any special introduction you want to make up Samuel Center? Or should we just start talking to Samuel Center?

Just get right on into it.

Hi, Hello, Samuel Wall.

Beautiful people, this is crazy.

It is crazy.

You are a professional dude. You came with the mic popping thing.

Donald needs one of those because he spits everywhere.

So I have a spit problem.

Yeah, Dan, can you get Samuel has for those of you listening, has one of those very fancy circle things you put in front of a mic, and and Donald needs one of those dances.

I have one. I have one.

No, well, we need it. We need it now.

It's probably called a spit guard or a yes shield. You know.

When I first saw the spit guard was in the We Are the World music video, and that's where I also sold that you were supposed to hold your headphones like this over one ear so you can hear ye, hear the harmonies.

When you're down and out, if you care, If you think you look better without headphones on your head, I think that's how you hold the.

Headphones, right, Yeah, Mike, Mike didn't want to mess up.

The freaking right, Neil, All the people that knew they were shooting a video, were like, you know what, the home Man. But if you just believe we should do a Donald, we should do an episode of this where we recreate the video and we each take turns playing different characters in the song.

Yeah, sure, man, I fucking did that as a kid. I used to do that as a kid. I could do it as an adults.

I used to love that. I would watch that over and over and over again. Anyway, Sorry, Samuel, where are you calling?

Samuel Center?

Okay, it's Oprah. Where are you calling from, Samuel?

I'm calling from a small town called Cloak in Minnesota.

Cloque, Minnesota. We got it the far North.

Welcome. You have Neil Flynn with us today, and that's Donald doing his best Oprah. And and do you have a question for us anything? Ask us anything?

Ask you anything? What happens when we die?

Oh?

Wow, No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding, don't you.

Thanks for coming on, everybody. Can you play the music that drives it off?

No?

Go ahead, sam You've got a real question.

Go ahead, I do I have a real question for you. First of all, thank you for all of the years of entertainment. This is such a thrill to meet you guys. No, it's incredible, thank you. So in terms of entertainment, you guys have been there for You've been in the business for so long and just seeing how things change, and it feels like people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.

Man.

My sister was big into Clueless, and I can't tell you how much I look up to you and have tried to emulate some of the style that you.

Have accepted and received except.

But as days have changed in people's attention spans have gotten shorter. How do you feel yourselves adapting as entertainers, writers and improv comedy people. Do you feel like you've had to shift the way you approach things or do you feel like you've kept it the same to just stay true to your art or how does that feel on your end?

That's a good question. Know, they just came out with this service. As I understand, it isn't doing as well as anyone hoped called Quibi, which is basically like ten minute episodes you can watch on your phone, which I would have thought would do well because people are commuting and they're sitting in a doctor's office, and for all I know it will do well one day, but that I was thinking of of that service when you said that.

I feel like it's, well, you know, while we're in this downtime, I'm trying to you know, I got a couple of other voices, trying to develop something, you know, to do when when we can start to work again. Yeah, And it's really I've never done that before. I've never helped create a show, but I feel like to start a new show now, I don't think attention spans are any order. Necessarily, people are watching stuff, it's just not

Although although, Neil, you just gave me a genius idea to do a traditional like living room sitcom, but it's Kings and Queen's in a castle.

I would do it, except they live on like the set of the Cosby show, the Kings and Queen, but they just have a television.

But they're they're royals, and they've transported from a from another era, but and they don't really know why they're there. But they live in this this you know, suburban house.

That could work, or I could have worked in nineteen eighty six.

You know, come on, man, if ALF could.

Work, I was just gonna say ELF. Yeah.

We talked about ALF extensively in one of these episodes, because I remember as a kid, a child, seeing a commercial for ALF and being like, that's so stupid. No one's gonna watch that, And then cut to me like riveted every week like watching ALF.

You call that being kind of funny. I think it was a kind of a funny show.

No, it was genius and Max Wright, who is hilarious, Yeah, played the father.

What are you doing? Alf?

And he notoriously hated being on a puppet show. He hated every second of it. Oh w he hated the puppet.

Fuck that puppet.

I would have woke off this set. Fuck you, out going trailer, Alf, Fuck you.

This is a true story.

Alf the puppet was actually my sleep paralysis demon from like age three to ten.

Well, I didn't see sleep paralysis demon. What's it about?

I have all their music? What is what is a sleep paralysis demon? For those of us who don't know?

All right, So, sleep paralysis is like this condition where you're you know, dead asleep and you and if I'm sure you know, if you don't know, there's chemicals in your body that released to paralyze you while you're sleeping so that you don't get up and run while you're dreaming. Right, there's things there's a phenomenon that can happen where you achieve consciousness, but you're still paralyzed by those things that are keeping you sleeping. And I happen to get that

And when I was.

Eight years old, I think specifically, anytime I would get in the sleep paralysis state, there would be Alf at the edge of my I be.

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's a frightening thing.

And was Al saying anything to you? Or was he was just he was just him up against the glass at the foot of your bed.

Yeah, it was just him against the glass. I don't know, man, Do you still have a sleep paralysis a sleep paralysis demon?

Now?

Yeah? And is it still Alf?

Is it still Alf? No?

Now, it's just uh Now, it's just I was gonna say something, but I won't.

No.

Now it's it's actually a guy in a suit.

Okay, Wow, Wow.

That's scary.

Well that's very scary. I I that's traumatic. You know, Alf. I didn't have that much problems with Alf. We brought it up. We brought it up on the show before. I didn't know. I don't know if this was in your sleep paralysis nightmare. But Alf has a tail. We learned, uh Neil because I had the stuffed animal for Alf and I was a child, and what I would do is I would take the alf tail and I would tuck it through its legs and close his legs to give him a giant erect alf penis.

Mister Braf, You've changed my life in many ways, and now I want to thank you because now my sleep proalysis Alf is going to have a big old tail penis.

Thank you for that. Now, Sam, I'm gonna feel so bad if it goes back from man and suit to Alf with an alpha erection. I apologize, but maybe you'll be able to laugh and just point and laugh at him. Maybe he'll dissipate.

I'm not sure I understood the question. I thought you were asking, like how to how.

He was saying now that in his opinion and an opinion of others, things are getting shorter and shorter for short attention spans. Do you think there's any way that you have adapted the way you perform or evolved things that you're doing for a shorter attention span, whether it's anything you do, maybe in your animated videos. You know, I noticed something I'm gonna I'm gonna answer for Donald and Donald you pipe in. You used to post some

Absolutely, because at one point I realized that, thank you very much, Zach. At one point I realized people were not paying attention past a minute, you know what I mean? Fuck that, not paying attention past thirty seconds. And so now when I do when I post animation clips, they're like four seconds or five seconds, because you know, if anything, they'll watch it a couple of times, three or four times before they move on to the next thing, to make sure they're just to pick up visually what it

And also I have a side question. If you're doing animation, is it better for you to focus on a short do a short little segment really really really well, rather than do work on a full minute that has mistakes in it.

Yeah, it's better to do it. In my opinion, if you can do a full minute of perfect animation, you're great. But no movie is like that either though, you know what I mean. There are very few movies that have scenes that are a wonder for one minute, you know what I mean. And if they do do that, it's a special shot. And so with animation you try to shoot it just like you would shoot any other project that you put on film, whether it be movie or television. You want to make it quick and keep the cuts

Sometimes I send you clips of animation that I think is cool and you don't even reply, and it hurts my feelings.

I'm sorry because I've seen them already, I know.

But you could say yes, I've seen this.

I could say yes, I've seen this, thank you.

It's like when my mom sends me my mom send me a picture of like a bird, and you know, okay, but I can I still take the time to be like pretty bird, mom. You know, you could you might you know, I might say, hey, exact cool animation, saw this one.

You know what, from here on out, because I now know that you're very sensitive when.

It comes to I am sensitive.

I will from here on out, I will respond with oh man, I've seen that already. But thank you.

All right, Samuel, give another question.

I got all kinds of questions, but we'll keep it. We'll keep it like uh, just knowing that mister Flynn is there, which is so cool. I just have to say, I seriously think you one of the funniest people that has ever existed. Especially I told him that too. I say, I agree, It's just totally true. I'm just you know, just freeballing here. Let's just say that, yeah, freeballing always always.

You don't have to tell us what you're under our situation, sam I said the wrong word under. You know, this is why alphon't leave the foot of your bed.

He wants to see those balls, Oh, Samuel.

All right, Samuel, go ahead, free ball away.

Janitor spinoff of Scrubs. Let's just say that they brought it back. Let's just say they got mister Braff and mister Faison uh signed on his co stars and at least the pilot episode. Where would you want to explore the janitor's character now, and what would you want the episode around? What kind of stuff would you like to be in it outer space?

That's where it's sat. When we're marooned in outer space.

So it's sort of like a Gilligan's Island type island on the planet or ship?

Are you on a ship kneel or or on a planet?

Uh a ship? And then then like toward the end of the first season, it lands.

Sort of like sort of like Josie and the pussy Cats, the janitor and the and the doctors.

Yes, it's very much like Josie and the pussy Cats. And yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't notice that I stole up.

So the janitors also in a band.

Yeah, we're all musicians.

Yeah, Neil, you joke, But I would watch this show. I mean, nern't necessarily steal the character from Scrubs, but you could be. Your character is a janitor on a on a spaceship, which is a character you never see who's cleaning Who's cleaning these spaceships?

Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

They watched so much sci fi. Have you ever seen anyone cleaning up inside any of those ships.

No, never, not even the Millennium Falcon, which is the dirtiest spaceship in the galaxy.

No one does any maintenance.

Never ever.

Maybe Jordie did a little maintenance.

Well, but Jordy was like he was an engineer though. Man, he was like, oh, that's.

Right, working like just like like your character would often be, you be doing something. We joke about, Neil that we sometimes we're like, you know what, the janitor was actually a good janitor.

For all he was.

He really worked a lot. He was always doing ship and uh and you always always were actually working.

I would have said the opposite. There was oftentimes I would say, should I be doing something? I'm constantly just walking around the corner with nothing in my hands. You know, what are you doing?

Wasn't there a time when when when someone a director said to mop in the admissions and you're like, there's a carpet.

I don't remember that.

Anyway, I'm very interested, Neil in developing this. You're a chanitor on a spaceship series.

Okay, yeah, because if it's it's about three guys that they're marooned out in space. Okay, Well, what did they do beforehand? Were they scientists or.

They were on a mission?

Donald and I were were the well two guys were on a mission and one guy was cleaning the ship for them.

No, no, no, no, Donald, Donald, that's what it was. Yes, Donald and I are on a mission, and part of this mission. Because there's been a lot of complaints about cleanliness and spaceships, they sent along a member of the janitorial stuff to keep the ship clean while they're on their mission.

And then once it, once it crashes or whatever, the status you know, the totem pole is scrambled. Yes, right, yeah, Now the scientists, you know.

Scared shitless, and the janitor is like, I can handle this because follow my lead.

Yeah, the janitor.

Janitor becomes the captain.

Yes, and maybe maybe Donald and I are injured, so we can't really do much, but the janitor takes over.

Well, we don't have to be injured. We just have to be like kind of like not really good with other things other than piloting in science.

No survival skills whatsoever, whatsoever.

That's good Neil. So Neil's character is like not only was he working for a custodial staff, but he was an amazing survivalist, and Donald and I don't know anything about how to survival on this random planet.

Our journey could have been just we were supposed to go to the International Space Station, right, and that's it. And somehow we got knocked off course by some crazy ass gamma wave or some type of microwave or something like that, and it sends us into a wormhole and we wind up in this fucking galaxy where we don't know shit about anything, right, but and don't know how to survive other than if we were to be, you know, on an International space station. And Neil Flynn Janitor.

Hey, you know what I just thought of something We didn't star Trek. They went to different planets and stuff, right, Yes, they never wore helmets, pursuits.

Those ever, they had oxygen and those all those planets had oxygen.

They were all supporting planets, right.

Apparently they made that decision early on.

Well, I imagine, like you said, with the headphones not looking good, I'm sure that what's his name, Captain Kirk was like, you're not putting the helen on this.

Yeah, it was like no way to this Shattner.

Yeah, So that's the idea Joel, will you produce? Joel will produce.

Thank you.

We're off to the races, Samuel, thank you for calling in, my friend.

Oh it's such a pleasure to meet everybody.

Thank you very much.

Thank you awesome and good luck and listen, don't let those monsters keep you in bed. Be safe.

Now. I'm going to show my balls and laugh at him.

That's all.

And that's a lesson for everybody out there. If you're ever afraid, show them your balls and just laugh at them.

Well, I'll see you in jail.

Maybe not. Donald's like, well, never mind, by.

Take care.

Oh my god, I have so many questions.

Back to space Janitor.

I love that Neil's like furiously taking notes about that.

Yes I am. I wonder if part of it should be a game show, or maybe the whole thing a game show. Just for some reason, we're sticking with this, these these elements that are a Janitor lost in space. Okay, Carter family, What is the capital of shod.

For the stop.

And believe it or not, Neil starts with a G. There's a silent G. Yeah, jeelity check is G s T A a D? If I'm not mistaken?

God, that reminds me of DJIBOUTI. I think it's pronounced this episodes with an N.

I think starts.

You're right, you're right, yeah, yeah.

But I remember when we used to do the show.

You used to do crossword puzzles, did I yeah, I'm going through phases.

Yes, the New York Times probably.

Yeah, and you would do I remember I never I suck at spelling, and I also suck at crossword puzzles. But would you ever get to would you ever get to the Sunday one? Have you ever? You know what I mean? Like I hear the Sunday ones are the real hard ones. Monday it gets easy and then yeah that goes it gets more difficult.

And as you could finish a Sunday is what you're asking.

I'm asking. I'm asking how deep into the week would you get? Because I know there were times where you would you know, I remember asking you one. You'd be like, oh this is from like a couple of weeks ago.

Hmm, oh really, well that's you know, it depends on how yeah hard your work. Sometimes you just pick it up for ten minutes and go on about your day. But I haven't done one in a long time. But yes. I used to completely most of the time the same day, within an hour or two.

Okay.

I was always jealous of people that could.

I was. I think, at least what I know to be true, is it actually Saturday is the hardest day. Sunday's a big puzzle. Sunday's like the super sized puzzle, not necessarily harder.

So it builds the Saturday, and then Sunday's a bigger one, and Monday's the easiest. I feel like I have maybe done a Monday.

I've never I remember somebody saying that to me and being like, oh, okay, let me get the one on Monday. I just don't know, And I realized you had to. You had well, you had to read the paper too.

That was the as I didn't know a lot of trivia. I mean, I could do it if it was like, you know, no letters, three letters, star of a sitcom alien puppet.

This is a nice, nice callback.

Thank you, Thank you. It means a lot to me. We barely talked about the episode, but we should talk about the Saint Elsewhere cast that was visiting in this. Did you guys, either one of you watch Saint Elsewhere back in the day.

I did so Denzel, Yeah else was it Denzil's first role. I don't know if it was his first role, but I know he was on sayt Elsewhere, him and Howie Mandel.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Wasn't the theme song like that and that that something like that?

Yeah, that sounds very familiar.

I visited the set once my parents watched it. I believe it was Bruce Paltrow, Gwyneth Paltrow's father, who was a very big showrunner then, who produced it with others. And my dad knew someone. We were visiting La and my dad knew someone. We got onto the set. It was like the first, like real big TV set. Interestingly,

Well he's been. The crazy thing is he's barely on the show, like he was one of the Yeah, you know, they didn't use him a lot on the show, and which was which turned out to be great for him because he would be able to go and do movies instead of you know what I mean, they were like, well, you're not on the show this week, and he'd be like, oh, okay, well there's this dude doing this project. I you know, I'm going to sign on and do it.

Then.

So, like I remember Cry Freedom coming out. Oh I remember that movie, you know what I mean? Him, and that's.

An amazing movie. If you haven't seen it, Cry Freedom.

Cry Freedom. Him and Fish called Wander No it was Kevin Klein. Yeah, and so I remember they did. I remember that came out and I remember being like, holy cow, the dude from And this is when my parents were like informing me, no, this guy is an amazing actor. He's done he did theater in New York, you know what I mean, He's now blowing up as an actor. You should really check out if you because you know, I wanted to be an actor at an early age.

Yeah, that was incredible.

And uh and I was very young when I came out.

I don't know.

And then you know, from that Mississippi Massala and you know, The Mighty Quinn and a bunch of other movies.

But yeah, then Glory eventually of course Glory.

Yeah, Glen Glory was one of the first times as a child that I that I knew who he was. And I've just never seen a performance better than that performance in Glory.

By the time Glory came out, I was well versed in Denzel Washington. William go ahead, I was just.

Gonna say that for me. William Daniels is the voice of Kit.

Yeah.

Right, And when when William Daniels started speaking in this episode, I had forgotten. I went, oh my god, it's kid. Yeah, well he was the voice of wat. Oh.

Yeah, you never watched night Rider.

He's a little bit older than us. So Donald and I were right in the pocket for a team and night Rider And did.

You ever watch a Team?

No? Oh, or never.

Well, you know, I went to Universal Studios and I was a kid. We went to Universal Studios the tour and they had a night Rider car and you could get in it and the car would talk to you, and it was amazing. In hindsight as an adult they obviously had a hidden camera and a guy, but as a child that was like, holy shit, it's Kit And I just remember thinking he was the coolest. And he would, you know, he would say things to try and show

Did he go on to do Boy Meets World after all of that, after Night Rider and everything? Wasn't he like the next door neighbor William Daniels?

Yeah, yes, But I don't know about Boy Meets World, but certainly it would have been after sane elsewhere. Wasn't he I think I'm mixing him up with somebody else. But wasn't he in the graduate? Oh?

I don't know, I don't know. That's a good question.

He might have been Dustin Hoffman's dad, the one.

Who says plastics. Is he the one who says plastics?

No, but that's in their yard.

That's right. That's a neighbor, right, or a friend.

Yeah, I can picture him saying Benjamin, Benjamin. And if it's not him, it's an actor.

That Joel's checking reminds me of each other. And then at at Begley h And also Stephen First, who was famously an Animal House. Yeah, have you seen Animal House?

Donald?

I have seen that. Yes, I have seen animal I.

Saw Animal House the night before I left for college.

College was college like animal.

Not well, you know, it wasn't quite the same. But I did join a fraternity, probably influenced by that somewhat. It seemed like they were having fun.

Yeah, did you toga?

I don't think we ever did a toga thing. That would be a little too on the notes.

Dude, what's up with the zombie movie? All of a sudden, in the middle of this episode, out of nowhere, it turned into a zombie movie.

I know it was Mark Buckland directing. I remember, and I remember it was kind of like a wide angle lens and trying to do all sort of a zombie film. I thought that was weird too. Did you notice it? Sorry, I'm going I'm jumping around, but it's seven oh three. I don't know if you noticed this, but the score all of a sudden has like record DJ scratching in it. Did you notice that?

I didn't notice.

There's like a score queue like all of a sudden, It's like.

No fun, Prince of bel Air.

Oh wait, so so Joelle is saying that Joel, are you saying that he was in the graduate then he was? Indeed?

Sorry, yes, he was in the graduate Neil.

You're right, okay, all right, there you go.

So in this episode, you know, JD's all word that he UH has gotten sick from UH. And I remember when I was a kid, I just felt invincible, you know what I mean? And you know, even with even with things that I shouldn't have been even with things that I shouldn't have been doing where I should have been using protection, I felt like invincible, like you know, motorcycles whatever whatever it was, where I should have, you know, wore a helmet. I didn't, you know what I mean?

Are using a cryptic analogy because your daughter is on your lap? Yes, I see, I followed it.

Now, yeah you didn't.

You didn't wear a helmet when you were on your motorcycle.

Absolutely right. But the fear of disease or hurting myself in any way never came across my mind. You didn't think about things like that. Now I have nothing but fear when it comes to that stuff, you know what I mean. And it's it's it's I I noticed that I've because of the situation that we're in, and you know, because of isolation and quarantine and everything like that. I

I know I was coughing last night and I was like, oh my god, my girlfriend must totally think I'm sick. I don't know if you guys are conscious of that. You're like, now you cough in public and you're like, no.

No, I'm fine, No, no, no, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. And and that's you know, this episode. You know, everybody needs first of all, everybody needs to first of all chill out, you know what I mean. I know that this is a very dangerous and scary time for us and everything like that, but you're you're always jumping to the worst case scenario, you know what I mean. You you have a you have a you know, a feeling in your foot. You jump online and the next thing

You know what I mean? Your digestify on your toes. You're fucked.

Yeah, you're fucked right, But you know what I mean, It's.

Like, I don't know if everyone's like that. Don you and I might be a neurotic and looking everything up and thinking we've got something bad, whereas other people might be like, you know, I'm fine.

I don't know that many people that are that think that way, you know what I mean. I think there's a fear. We talked about this earlier. There's a fear of going to the hospital and finding out that something's wrong. So I think a lot of people when something does come up, they're like, ah, you know what, I'm not going to find out about it. If it's really bad, it'll kick my ass later on and then I'll have to go to the hospital and they'll fix it then.

That would have freaked me out.

Either I would have lost my ship. Nowadays, I'd be like, I'm dying. I know I'm dead. Sarah was the only person that I knew. Sarah Schalk was the only person that I knew that was like that was like if if she had if she had the chills, it was it was life for death. I'm dying. I know I'm dying, you know what I mean.

It must be a real thing. I mean, while terrifying for for real medical personnel, who who get stuck, I'm sure on occasion if the person had something serious, how scary that would be.

We're walking around the house. Don't get sick, and don't break your leg, don't get hurt, you know what I mean. The kids are playing around like, well, everybody, calm down. We don't want to go to the hospital right now. Now's not the time to go to the hospital.

Well, really, there's you know, it's never a good time to go to the hospital. But uh yeah, I thought about that, like if you had a appendix.

Right, was exact ass cheek.

Yeah, I can have my eye shake removed, but it was an elective surgery. Turns out side they couldn't have that. But yeah, you don't want anything to go wrong. You're well, we'll see, you know, in the next week or so if any of this people crowding around each other, uh something.

Well, I actually have said I not to be Debbie Downer towards the end of the episode, but that the things are spiking back up in LA and uhh, and no one's talking about it because there's plenty else going on in the news, as we all know. But I read I read some articles like why is no one talking about the new COVID spike in Los Angeles?

I think there's spikes in a lot of places, but New York is going down so much that it looks like a flat line.

For the country, you mean, like the national line. Yeah, yes, yes, well yeah, I fear I fear that that everyone's kind of over it. You know, people are like, all right, we did fuck it. We got to get out of the house now. And and that might be fine if you live in a place where this isn't as prevalent, but in la it does appear to be climbing back up.

And the only reason why we're talking about this right now, we know we try to get you away from as listeners, and we try to keep this as a distraction, a distracted as much as a distraction as possible. But this is in the story. Yes, you know what I mean, And so that's why we.

That's why, guys, it's it's in the episode. And so you know about Scott Foley being left I mean, listen and Jowell please weigh in as the only female on the panel, but Scott fully Scott Foley being left alone by Sarah standing there with his roses, it just felt a little like just so mean. I mean, with Elliott, she found love and or not love necessarily, but she really liked this guy. He's as bad as charming as

Yeah?

I think okay, So I didn't get into movies from the seventies until like I was in college. This is sort of my first experience watching a woman be like, listen, I like you, but this career I've invested in is everything to me that we have to pause because it wasn't even like a solid breakup. She's like, right now, I can't make this work. And it like as a you know. Once, I'm like twelve, and I was like, you could just leave a dude for work.

It's brilliant started.

A white boys at that age. And I was like, oh, so tedious. And so for her to just be like, I'm gonna work on my stuff, I was like, this is brilliant. Oh my god, I really like to see.

Oh I okay, there you go. There's the answer. I was like, I mean, I was impressed by the character making that choice because the writers really went out of their way to make sure there was absolutely nothing wrong with this guy. I mean, he was as dreamy as it could be. But she was getting distracted from her work and and she was like, look, I really am excited about but this is what I've worked my whole life for. So I gotta I gotta push you away.

Which he's not gone though, is he.

No, he does come back.

But I don't know that she was distracted. I think it was how the hospital reacted to her and the Walk of Shame in the beginning of the episode. I think that was more of a reason for her to break up with. You know, Elliott is very worried about what everyone thinks about her. That's what the character, That's how the character is, you know. You know, she even says it in the beginning, and ninety nine percent of my life is me trying to impress my dad, you know

But he was also it wasn't just that Donald she you know, Kelso's like grilling her and she doesn't know the answers to questions. It rounds where she always does, and then she starts getting in her head. At one point she's like, uh, she can't think of something, and I like, I turned around, I'm like, come on, you know that she's tired, maybe because she was up all night playing schoolgirl right.

But I think that stems from once again, you know, Kelso seeing her at the at the scrubs machine and giving her ship for not having her scrubs her scrubs.

That day, you know what I mean.

I think, I don't know, I could be I don't know.

It's probably it's probably both a combination of both. But anyway, we all know, we all know the spoiler alert that Scott Foley comes back. He ends up being an animal. Is he a marine biologist or an animal trainer at SeaWorld something like that.

But what a great scene that was though, too man where they break up because it looks like it's going one way, you know, and the miss there's a great misdirection, right, you know, she breaks she kind of you see her breaking up with him earlier in the script where he comes to visit her and she's like, and he's doing all the right things, and she's getting pissed off that

I felt bad for him. I'm such a sucker for the writers. Really how to get me with you know, love that cannot be. I'm like, oh, this poor guy, he's like crazy about this girl. He's standing here with roses and he's like, she's goes, he goes. I'm gonna be I'm gonna wait here because I know you're gonna change your mind in two minutes and She's like, I hope so, and then she doesn't he.

Just and then he trashes the roses.

Well do you think he trashes the rose that or he leaves them and people just walk all over him. I couldn't just figure that out.

Yeah, I just thought of that when I first saw the roses. I thought, yeah, come on, that's a little bit of a hissy fit.

Like he was jumping up and down on it.

Yes, yes, but the only reason I know that he doesn't disappear well it, come to think of it. Oh, no, the last episode I guess of season one is somebody's wedding. Is it Turk and Carla?

No, we don't get married until season three, I think.

Well, then.

At the end of season two.

When we were shooting that episode.

He was there in the last episode of the scene your wedding.

Yes, that is he So many fays, you.

Know, there's so many fans right now that know the show better than us. They're like, you idiots, he's an episode and this one and this one of this one, but we don't know.

Oh yeah, let's ask. Let's let a wiki guy, all right.

So, Neil, we have this guy. His name is Trevor Trevor Wiki, we have a question. How many more episodes is Scott folly in? And was he? Did he attend Donald and Carla's wedding? Hey, guys, Scott fully appears in twelve episodes over seasons one, three, and eight, including Turk and Carla's wedding reception in the season three finale. All right, we got to wrap this up. Guys. We've been neil. I'm sorry to keep you so long. We've been going an hour and forty five six minutes.

It's okay.

I hope you had a good time just shooting the ship with us. We miss you.

We miss you big time. We'd love to have you back too, if you ever want to come back and hang out with us. Yes, me more than yeah, I will because this was fun.

But I thought we would talk about me more. That kind of bored.

Oh, he checked out until we started talking about the night terrors. Guy Alf at the foot of his bed against the glass. By the way, Donald, remember we were speaking about that rap song up, sir, mix a lot. Put him on the glass, put him on the baby. Yeah, his nightmare is Alf putting him on the glass.

Yeah, that would do it for me too.

For now, I have the visual of Alf putting his breasts on on on glass.

Or his tail penis or his tail penis.

On that note. Thank you everybody for listening. We really appreciate it. Follow Donald and I on Instagram, especially Donald because he doesn't have as many followers as I. He's very upset about it.

I am very upset about it. We even talked about it on the podcast. It hasn't moved. It hasn't moved.

Don't yell at people. Donald, it's not a win to end the podcast.

I just don't. I think it's disrespectful. I think it's disrespectful.

Okay, calm down.

I was clueless, damn it.

Oh my god, I was in clueless. Dammit. Uh you guys followed Donald and also please rate our podcast. Give us when you get out of an uber and they're like five stars five stars, give us five stars because apparently that means something in the podcast world, and tell your friends to subscribe. We're having a blast doing this and we're gonna keep doing it for the foreseeable future. Yes, yes, it's totally free. You know, we just do this. It's paid for by by advertisers playing ads, and this is

I was gonna say, and you know, we'll have Neil back on and we'll talk about more things I wanted to get into. I wanted to get into The Fugitive.

I wanted to say it, let's save it. Maybe he has a one story about Harrison Ford being difficult to save it? All right, thanks for listening.

Just work twice with Harrison Ford, though he's worked twice with Harrison Ford The Crystal Skull and and and The Fugitive.

Yeah, for one day each time?

Right, Well, once sing you had way more lines than just kimbole.

Is that all it was, Kimball?

Yeah, it was more in the script, not not much more, but it was. I was wondering which take they would use when I saw the film. We wonder when I'm saying, now back up, come toward me, let me see your hands, you know all that stuff, And I see the movie and it's Kimball Bank straight to me.

Well, Neil, you're in You're in what I consider a classic. So that's just cool to me.

And it is a really good movie.

It's a great I recently rewatched it and it's so good. Holds up, Oh, it holds up. It's so good. All right, Donald lead us in the song you Got Mad Last Time when I did.

It, I want Nail to do it, Neil, can you just go? Five six seven?

The real quick?

Yeah, stories about show. We made about a bunch of stories. Yea.

We watch Your Wiz and Allo