Scott Aukerman on The Apartment

which really helped. And I came to learn very quickly that he's a great dude and super nice and uh and just a sweet, sweet guy. And we got to sit here and talk about uh. He let me go for a really long time, much longer than he said he had time for. We talked about music, which was great. We got to talk about his great podcast are You Talking? You two to me? Are you Talking? R? E? M Reamy that he does with Adam Scott that you all

know that I'm obsessed with. We got to talk about our similar backgrounds growing up as as Baptist boys, and the beginnings of his career with Mr. Show one of my um early, early big comedy influences for me back in the day, and um, and he was just the best guy. We got to talk about all the things that I wanted to cover, including his movie Crush, the classic perfect film from nineteen sixty from writer and director Billy Wilder. The Apartment with Jack Lemon and Shirley McLean

and Fred Murray was great. It couldn't have gone any better. Big thanks to Scott for coming on. And here we go with Scott Ackerman on the Apartment. It's remarkably consistent. Um, you know, Josh and I had the advantage of not having a book guests, and uh, kind of just like we're on autopilot at this point. We've got it so down it's very very natural. But yeah, that is crazy. So you started in April of April two thousand nine. Yeah, I mean that was literally when we started. Yeah, crazy,

You know, the landscape back then was a lot different. Nothing. We're very lucky. I feel very fortunate, Yeah, to get in that or because it's so weird, I feel like numbers, like how we get numbers, or due to just being around so long for whatever reason. Anyway, you know, I feel that way too, Like sometimes I wonder how many of people of the actual numbers we get are listening, but they I know they are because they we track them and they press play. But it used to just

be subscriptions and that's how your numbers were. But I don't know, it's so crazy. Yeah, I bet you guys get a little bit of what we get to, which is people like we'll get emails from people that say, you know, I listened for six years and then just went away for a couple of years and now I'm back, and um, like, it's so cool that you're still doing the same thing and I've caught up with all the older episodes. I feel like, I'm like, comedy is very

important to people when they're young. I feel like, and then people get families and they start having less time, and comedy gets less important to them. So I I think that my show is a little more like and that's why I try to keep it current with like current comedians rather than just going back to the same

well of people from ten years ago. But it's like, I feel like it burns bright in people's loves for for two or three years or something like that, and then they go away, new people come in, you know, But yeah, that's true. Uh, And I'm sure you also get some of these emails that totally freak you out. Like I started listening when I was ten, and you know, I just got my master's and you guys were with me the whole time, Like Jesus, Yeah, it's so weird,

such a weird thing that we fell into. I know, well, but you, I mean I truly fell into it, and that I had no previous experience in entertainment other than you know, working as a p a film sets on TV commercials out here, right, But you you were already well established. Yeah, I mean I was doing I was doing my show as a hobby while I was writing, because I you know, I worked on I started as a comedian um here in l A. And I was performing a lot, um and I was performing, you know,

several times a week, and this like mid nineties. This is mid nineties. I started July and so um until I started working on MR Show, which was ninety seven or maybe um eight, all right, but I was performing a lot, you know, and then I got a MR Show, and um, those guys very nicely because they knew I was a performer, said hey, um, you know you're gonna be writing for us You're not gonna be writing for yourself,

so don't right yourself into sketches, you know. I mean, we we hired you because we like your voice, but this is writing for us. I feel like I took that, and being like always wanting to be the a student, I was like, all right, I'm not performing anymore. And but you were on the show. Some they were very nicely like, let me be on the show a lot, um, but I didn't expect it. I was like, Oh, these guys don't like me as a performer or don't want

any me to performal. I'm just gonna be a writer. Um. And then I had co written this Spec movie, this movie on Spec that got very very popular and got close to being made several times. And so I just kind of segued into being just a writer and never performs really all that much anymore. And and um, even when I started doing my live show at first at the Mbar and then the UCB Theater here in l a comedy death Ray, I would just produce it and I wouldn't even like perform on it all that much.

Maybe once a month maybe, you know. It wasn't like Save the Meltdown show with Kamal and Jonah where they were the hosts every week. It truly was. I wanted to make it the best show every week that it could be. And I was like, with me as a host, it's not gonna be the best it can be. Like I was tired of shows in l A where the hosts would and you know, force themselves to be on the show and be the dead spot that people were like, Okay, this person again every week, we have to listen to

this guy. So I I had pretty much like not really performed at all for a while. UM, but I missed it, and so I was sort of doing stand up every once in a while, and so I started doing the podcast because I was kind of regularly doing characters on UH, the morning show at this local radio station, INDI one oh three one. I was calling in and doing UH. My most popular character was the guy who plays Spider Man out in front of the Man's Chinese theater. I forget what my name was, but I would do

American Idol recaps every time. I would do Robin Williams and all this kind of stuff, and they just like gave me my own show and said, hey, you know a lot of comedians and you're always calling in and doing the characters. Why don't you do your own show? So it became like a a hobby where I was like, oh, I get to perform again, and I was doing it

for free. They weren't paying me. Um. And we turned that into the podcast and um it just you know, I started to see how popular podcasts were compared to people listening to radio, you know, and so it really was just something, you know, like my career is sort of filled with all these things that I did just for fun. That then turned into the main thing that I do, which is like really kind of strange between

two ferns. Was that way um so great? Uh bang bang the r E M Show, you know, like we thought no one would listen to that, Yeah, the you two show. So like all this stuff that I did, it was just like, hey, here's a dumb idea that no one will give a shit about, right, let's just do it. And then that became like the main thing,

do you feel like? And I was talking just for the listeners with Scott about I'm obsessed and I've talked a lot on this show about the r M Show, Thank you, just being obsessed with it, but you're telling me before the show you don't recommend it to know, Well, I reckon like r M was and YouTube were my guys as well. Yeah, and especially with the same age dish I march Okay, yeah, I'm nine, but um so, I guess we're a little off. But and we had

similar upbringings too. With h that's a joke. I know you gave me a look at confusion, which is not how people usually react was. I didn't get it until this later. Uh. I grew up Baptists in a in the Southern Baptist House in Georgia. Um. Born in Georgia, but moved to California. Yeah, Savannah. Yeah, so you have obviously left very quickly, right, Yeah, like six weeks after

I was born. Have you ever been back? Uh, We've filmed the Mr Show movie in Atlanta and um, and then I've been to Atlanta a couple of times, gotcha, but not Savannah. Not Savannah now maybe during the MR Show movie. I can't remember, right, Yeah, yeah, I think from listening to the r M Show, your parents were a little more strict yeah than mine. Mine weren't necessarily permissive. They were just obsessed with disliking each other. So I

was sort of as that took their focus. Basically, I was the third child, so I was kind of under the radar. But you know, Southern Baptist upbringing is um that that I later sort of did a full one eighty on. Yeah, so I know that you can identify

with that, Yeah, definitely. I mean it was something that I think from age thirteen through twenty even I was still sort of wrestling with it a little bit, you know of um, you know, I remember going to camp when I was thirteen or fourteen, and I had a girlfriend and we were you know, sort of like you know, exploring everything you know, and kind of like praying really hard, like please, yeah you should shouldn't I be a better person?

Or and just all the way through like twenty when I I lived at home until I was twenty, and then I moved away to go to school. Um, and so I had to go to church, uh once or twice a week Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Wednesday night would be the one until I was eighteen, but once I was eighteen, it was only Sunday morning Sunday night. So and then at a certain point just Sunday morning.

And then at a certain point I also was like staying at a friend's house on Saturday night, I wouldn't have to go to you know, Sunday morning. Were you in the other of like uh f c A or Young Life for any of those. It was called boys Brigade that I was in. I heard that one maybe similar to what you're talking about, just school affiliated, you know,

not school affiliated, but yeah, it was. And I was singing in church on Sunday morning, yeah, until until I moved out, And so it was kind of one of those things that I was like, I think all these ideas really interesting, and I would talk to the youth pastors. We would go to lunch sometimes and I would talk about stuff and they go, oh, wow, you have a really interesting take on this, right, But at a certain point I was just like, it doesn't make any sense

to me. Yeah, I think that kind of happened for me. In college, I took a religion class where we studied I think Judaism, Buddhism, and um maybe Islam. I can't remember the third one, or maybe it was Christianity. And that's when I was like, oh, wait a minute, these are sort of all the same story. How could that be? Right? Right? Yeah, it's I don't know the more are you poke holes in it? I don't know. It just doesn't make a

lot of sense. But hey, I also am of the opinion really with any thing in the world, like if you if it makes you feel better, great, yeah, you know, so I don't come down on people who I'm not one of those atheists who's like, oh, you're so stupid and god, you know I came here. That's just pointless, even even some things that are probably harmful, like scientology or whatever, or even Mormon is. Um. I'm just like, you know what, Let people have whatever they can cling

to and make themselves feel better about life. Although if it's crossing over not harming other people, I mean that's how we sort of feel, like, like about a lot of old people who get into Fox News or whatever. It's like guys religion that yeah exactly. But uh, where was I going though with the r M thing? Yeah? I can't remember, Well we uh you were not recommending it yet. Going to college when r E M was you know, is when I and Athens I told you I played on the softball team with Mike Mills Uh,

Stipe was around. How was he as a player? Uh? He was okay? How are you as a player? I was good enough, you know. I was like your team with Dynamite. I mean it was one okay guy, it was It was bar softball, Bar League softball, so it was pretty low stakes. He was I remember, he was very competitive and took it a little more seriously than the rest of his stay. Interesting and I ended up hanging out with him one night about five years ago. Um, Eugene Merman came through town. He's a friend and he

uh invited everyone out. Mike Mills was one of him, and I reminded him. I had a good time, and I reminded him about the softball years. So he did not remember me, not remember you? Interesting? Did he know who you were from what you do? Or no? No? No, okay? Interesting? He knew nothing of me, but he was a nice guy. Interesting. Yeah, why would he not remember you if you were on the same team. I don't know, man, it was two

full seasons, two seasons. Yeah, I it is tough when you meet so many people, like when your life becomes as mine and Mike Mills have just incredible. Now do you Esppocally, if you're working on a lot of different things, like I'm sure and going and traveling to a lot of different cities, it just like it's sort of becomes a blur where you see someone and go absolutely who is that person? And then you look it up and go, oh wow. For six months we were constant contact. Yeah

what's a week? Yeah, but yeah, those were my guys in college, and um so when I started listening to show, it's it was the perfect mix for me of like legit r M stuff, which I love, and Adam Scott is just super fan. Yeah, and the dynamic between you guys, it's just so fun with with him taking it so seriously, and I mean we set out to make a serious show. That's what's so strange about really the very first episode of You two. Because the r M Show originated as

a show about you too. We went into it expecting to just literally super fan it and not do anything funny. And then I got to go back and hear those I forget what happened. But somewhere within the first two minutes of the first episode, Yeah, we started making jokes and it just became what it what it is is if you get us in a room together. We're just gonna make that. I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's

just great renaming everyone. And the way you guys get in and out of the sub episodes of you know, are we talking? Is this an episode of aclid Films or whatever? And I think the way and that's part of why it works is doing it the same every time, Like how quickly you get in and out of those bits. How one of you will say, oh, it sounds like it might be and then right afterward, how you know, good up, good up. Yeah, it's uh, it's it's like

this becomes this comforting thing somehow. Yeah, it's It's interesting because when we came back with the R E M version, I think, I mean, we all we both are constantly trying to figure out new angles, you know what I mean. But at the same time, some people were sort of like, oh, they are the first episode of r M is a little fan service, e of like doing the same thing that we've done in the YouTube episode. And I kind of I don't know where I land on that. It's like,

you can't just do totally new things. Essentially, although I started out as a comedian, I am you know, growing up in l A and listening to a lot of l A radio, I became very fascinated with DJs and like broadcasting, you know, and and Letterman started as a broadcaster, and I was always he was a hero of mine,

and I always thought that was very interesting. So I always paid a lot of attention to broadcasting and a lot of what he would do and a lot of what broadcasters do is you fit into a format and sort of you hit the same things all the time, and that becomes comforting, you know, and to to break out of that as a comedian is also something that

you're striving to do as a comedian. So it's like, I feel like the r M Show is is a push and pull between us doing what we know works and trying to get into weirder avenues as well that are new. But yeah, yeah, and well you handle it very much like a J with the intros. Yeah, I mean it sounds very much like uh like a sort of morning not not morning DJ necessarily, but for the

classic DJ sound. I think that it is. It is interesting because well, first of all, my voice whenever I'm on a podcast and I'm I'm doing a voice right now, sort of But essentially I in a conversation with me, I probably mumble more than than when I'm on a show. And I think when I started doing a podcast comedy Bang Bang, some some of my friends were a little like, oh, is this your radio voice? And I'm like, no, I'm

just trying to enunciate that I can be understood. So, like, as you can tell, I'm using my hands a lot, which I don't do in conversation all that much, you know, unless I get very animated about a topic, but um, on the radio, just you need to make sure that people are understanding you. So I think it's a little

bit of that. But yeah, I I you know, having the podcast company Your Wolf, it was a little I grew up being fascinated with broadcasting and so I sort of know all of those signposts that you have to hit of like introducing things right at the top and hyping things that are coming up, and then how to go to a break and come back to all that kind of stuff that comedians in general don't really know how to do. So that was a big challenge with

a lot of our early shows. You know, is is training them of like how much information you have to give so people are listening, going like what am I even listening to? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it's a real skill. It's amazing how many people have had on this show that are professionals, that have had to say, like, you know, you've got to get on the mic a little more. They'll just start talking like this. It happens all the

time on my show. People would be like back here, kind yeah, I'll go you are you have headphones on? No one can hear you? So weird. Yeah, it's very strange. Um. I was on the flight from Sketch Fest on the way down here today listening to the show and I'm sure you don't because you guys recorded it a while ago. I'm sure which one the r M style? Oh yeah, yeah we did last year or something like yeah, I'm sure you don't remember all the bits. But I rewound

and had people staring at me for ten minutes. It was when you did the episode of mini episode on kissing styles and you wintel idea. It was just the best because Adams was just like and then you did this like second horrible noise, horrible noises of I don't even know what you were doing or how you're doing it, but it was just sucking fantastic. You I I. I don't know if you have the same experience, but I don't recall a lot of of anything that I ever

talked about. I totally get it, and I didn't want to be the guy. It's like, I remember that one bit and you did Rochester and it was so funny. Rochester is someone that I would like to bring back. It's pretty great. There's a little forget there's a little Tony Clifton in him. But yeah, all Rochester, where you're from? Rochester? Mine? Rod Chester? Good do you guys? I mean, I'm sure you just get in there and wing it or are

you actually we mainly wing it. The one thing that I would say we do on an r EM show well, okay, comedy bank Bang and R A M a very different comedy bank Bang. I totally wing all. Really Yeah. All I ask from the people is what's your name and what's your occupation? UM, But for R E M. We maybe we'll say, hey, the first segment is us just talking, second segment let's talk about the record, and then the third segment such and such. But that's it. Yeah, I

think just wing it. Okay, that's what it's great, Thank you. It's really the best. I can't wait to get into the you two side, and I would love to hear A Smith's season three. I would love to do is Smith's one of my favorite bands, But yeah, who knows. I don't think Adams ever listened to him trying to break through that. Adam's very narrow. That's interesting scope of what he listens to is really the only hard part

of doing a sequel. Well. One of the things I shade about you with music too is, um, I don't think you're narrow, but you're very specific with what you like and you don't like um, I guess are in The perfect example is is basically getting to a point where you stopped listening to the new stuff. I was so into them and I love their early records so much that I they changed their style so much, which

is fine. I used to have. I think I tweeted this once about how bands that changed their style totally should have to change their names, you know, so Weezer should have to call themselves something else. Yeah, YouTube, especially YouTube, But I've sort of It's interesting because I I heard a song from Up the other day that's the episode of on now, Okay, so I it was why not Smile. I don't know where I landed on it on the actual episode, but I remember thinking that up was just

an exhausting record to listen to. Um, but I heard that song and I was like, Wow, this is really good. And I don't remember if I liked it on that episode or not, but um, I there was a certain point with r M where they changed their style so much that I just didn't think it was what I liked out of R e M anymore. Um. It happens with everything, with podcasts and everything. People will go like, you're doing this new thing now, and it's not hitting the same sort of like you know, uh thing in

my brain which is releasing the stimulus. You know, it's just not doing it for me. And that's why I like the show. I think it's perfectly valid on its own, but I wasn't willing to go there with them. And now I'm more appreciative of it. Yeah, And I mean I think even uh and of course I'm just now getting to the episode. You can even tell that Adam is he's finding ways to like it rather than putting on life's ritz pageant. And you don't have to do

anything but like turn your ears on. But I also truly think that Adam, because he likes a more narrow scope of music. I think he devoted the time to these records, you know, so he knows them backwards and forwards because he listened to them so many times. And when I'm doing a U R e. M. Episode or or a YouTube episode, I tend to do a lot of homework. That's the worst part about it is Adam knows all these things so much that he never has

to do homework. He just like rolls into the studio and can talk at length about these records, and he knows all the facts. I do a lot of homework, and I usually would listen to the records at least ten times in various that week, in various situations, blasting on my loud speakers in a car. I would just try to listen to it in various types of situations. And but but I'm also just not appreciating it the

way that he does, you know. So I think I think that he has a more nuanced understanding of the records than I do. Yeah, what was your Because I think we kind of also had a similar entree into lack of a better word, alternative music, which was eighth grade ish in excess, and The Cure and the Smiths, and mine was probably I mind because I was really

into Huey Lewis and The News. Well, I was too, yeah, through through even eight five through I mean, Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies of all time, but I would say that I was so fucking stoked when Huey Lewis was doing the theme to that, the fact that he's in the movie, it was amazing and that was just hitting all my sweet spots. So through

through eight five I think I was. I was still kind of into pop music, and I listened to Kiss FM pretty much, which is a local radio station, which is like Top forty basically. Then was really good. That's the thing is like at at you know, real people who really like alternative music. I when I started to get into alternative music, I threw away all my supposed, you know, pop records. I was like, these are these

are bad? I'm into alternative music. But it was all like Huey Lewis and The News, the Cars, incredible, incredible records that I'm saying, hall of notes and stuff. Get these out of here it's all great. So I became way less snobby about music. But my my entree was I think Smith's had Full of Hollow Probably I think

maybe Pretty in Pink. Is that where I first heard It must have been where I first heard Please Please Please, or maybe I got half full of Hollow first, but that came out in eighty five, right, So well, my entry to the Smiths was The Queen is Dead. So I was a little later, and it was a kid at church gave me the cassette. He gave me that, and he gave me Who's Screw Do Candy Apple Gray, and I had to kind of go backwards for both those bands. Yeah, I was. I had a I had

a best friend. Uh, that that was really what it was. Was my sophomore year. I had a best friend who we hung out together all the time, and he was really into alternative music. So he had Smith's posters, the Smith's the Alarm uh and um R e M. Those were like the three that I can sort of tie back to him, you know what I mean, or I I don't think I would have listened to them without him,

so uh. And I also had a different best friend, I guess I had two best friends, but um one was drama and one was regular school, but he was really into X and O, M D and all these things. So it was pretty much those two guys I think who really introduced me into things. But the Smith's really was, like I I he was really cool and I saw the Smith's poster on his record. It was from the

first record. So when I found Hat full of Hollow at Tower Records in UM on Beach Boulevard, UM, it was nine and it was a double record, and I was like, this is a fucking steel and so I got it and just wore that record out and and around that time k Rock UM I started being able to get the signal on on because I had like a FM a M F M Hi Fi with a record player and a tape cassette and I could finally get the signal for like F stations, you know what

I mean. And funny to think about those days. And so back in K Rock was playing like Prince next to you know, all of these great alternative bands that I grew up with. But that's that's really where my alternative love sort of started, you know. And then I just went in deep and pushed I was like all in on it, and then around twenty I was like

rebuying all of my pop records. Well it's interesting though, because I was for me, it was Casey Cason every Sunday after church listening to the Americans Stop forty um. And then MTV was uh hit me like a freight train. Especially as a little Baptist kid. I was glued to it. And when you look back at those early days of MTV, I didn't know. You're wearing an MTV shirt right now. I know, uh were this. The head of my heart

is Bob Pittman, who started MTV. So I brought it out here to to suck up to him a little bit. But I had the chance to tell him when I met him in person, I was like, Mr Pittman. I was like, I was, I was your kid. I was that kind of thing to do with it back in the early days. No, he founded and he founded it. I read the book, but I don't recall all the details. Yeah,

so I didn't know it at the time. But you know, if you're watching MTV in those days, you're watching like the Talking Heads and you're watching Billie Idol Duran Duran, Yeah, all this stuff that ended up being kind of the entree into alternative you just didn't really know it at the time. I will say that in eighty three I had a girlfriend that um, the one I was praying about UM when I was thirteen, who was really in

due all. She was really into X and I would sit there, I would I would watch like Video one over at her how which was the Richard Blade hosted like local video on TV show. Because we didn't we didn't have cable. I didn't have cables like Swell Birth thirteen, Okay, I didn't have until I was fifteen, and so in order to see MTV, I had to go over to a friend's house. So Video One or Friday Night Videos on NBC, those were the ones that you could see

all these videos for. But Friday Night Videos was a little more commercial, so it was like Phil Collins and stuff like that, whereas Video One was alternative, so it was like, you know, hazy, fantasy talking heads, all that kind of stuff. So that was really I think Oino Bowing, Oino Bow and Go. That was those were the first bands, alternative bands where I was like, oh, this is really interesting and weird. And she and my girlfriend really likes him.

She was also into Springsteen, which I at the time could never really figure out because um, she was basically I think she was into whatever Robert Hilburn at the l A Times About You, which is another like Adam Scott mainstay. He was reading Robert Hilburn reviews. It was like whatever he talked about she was into. Um, But yeah, I think I think so. I think eight. Between eighty three and eighty five, I was sort of figuring it out, and then eight from eighty five on I was like

totally into it, where I was like anything commercial sucks. Yeah, it's cool to go through because I started out on like Billy Joel and was just a fanatic as a kid. And that's the first time I ever drove a car was to a Billy Joel concert when I was sixteen. And there were many years where like you had to keep that quiet, but then you age back into like especially years sixteen and eighties six or yeah, yeah, I mean eight seven, I mean that was when he was

it's like storm front and really bad. Yeah. Yeah, one to three. It's like the least cool count count in Janny song in history probably. Yeah, those were bad Billy Jewel years. Yeah, a lot of reverb. Yeah. And also we got into the stained Glass two episode. By the way, Uh no, I would say, don't listen to that, but go backwards and listen to stain Glass one. Oh really yeah? Yeah, okay, yeah, because sting Glass one is in the you two section.

All right, those really need to be listened to. Billy Joel thread in there, yes, okay, yeah, all right, I will spoil no more of it for you. But when you get to that episode, just they're they're not connected to R. E. M or or YouTube tangentially they are, but go backwards listen to stain Glass one first and sting Glass two. Well, but you could have such a disparate taste back then, Like my first concert ever was

Cheap Trick Worship those guys. But I was also listening to Billy Joel, And because I was from the South, I had this um looking back these rednecks in the youth group that you know, I was listening to fucking Alabama right and stuff like that, and Hank Williams Jr. And Under skinnerd or Debt. Well, I have a brother in law who dated my sister at the time from high school on and he was given me a brother in law. Oh so he he started amber in high school? Yeah, okay, Um,

so he was feeding me. Dave was day of my sister at the time you become a brother. Um, but he was feeding me a steady diet of Leonard skinnerd and Allman Brothers and Blackfoot in Atlanta, Rhythm Section and all this stuff that I still love all that stuff. The thing I truly left in the rear view mirror was like Alabama, And I guess I haven't really I went back and did a real southern rock deep dive a few years back and started to get really into it,

but Alabama is something that I haven't really crossed. I mean, you're a California kids. But I will say that my brother and I just argued about music all the time, and he was into heavy metal and Rush and Prague and stuff like that, right, I think, And it's stuff that I like now. I think I wish I had been a little more open to it back then where I was, where I could be a little more like,

oh that's cool. And I remember him like showing me Rush albums and showing me all the intricacies of it and just going like this is stupid, and now I think it's cool. Yeah, So I don't know, I think I think now I'm sort of a person who's just like I can find good and kind of almost any style of music. And I when I throw on iTunes, basically I have like two d and fifty thousand songs

in my iTunes or something. I just put it on shuffle and you know, probably crazy, yeah, just you know, lounge stuff coming up next to you know, Subhumans and the Elliott Smith and Motley maybe MTh. I saw in a little tiny, uh like a bookstore here in l A before anyone knew who he was, because I was dating a girl who was like, oh, I think you'd like this guy, Elliot Smith, and went and saw like with thirty people him just with an acoustic guitar, and

I was like, then he became my favorite. I was like telling you Smith Elliott's and he was the best. I was um when I lived out here. It was when he put out UM figure eight and I lived right around the corner from the you know, the building of the album cut Her and I was like, oh my god. And I saw him a few times with the band, but I got to see one acoustic show at Spaceland where I got to see that like quintessential

Elliott Smith on a stool. It was just fantastic. Unfortunately, I also saw the other quintessential Elliott Smith on a stool where he was too high to do. Yeah, those were those were so depressing. I've think a couple of people too high to do a show, and it's just who else. I know, We're not supposed to talk about him anywhere. Ryan Adams just one of the Wiltern shows I've ever seen where he just was on he kept talking about like what a great night it was going

to be. He's like, hasn't has a whole album he's recording, He's going to play every song from it. And all he would do is he would talk for ten minutes in between every show about what he was going to do that night, and he hardly played any songs. And it was just like I was really into him and um, and I mean some of this sort of makes sense now because I saw him a couple of time hims.

Back then he just seemed kind of like an asshole. Yeah, and then when all this other who knows, Um, I don't want to keep you too late so maybe we should be here as long as you want. Well, I do want to talk a little bit about Mr. Show before we get into the apartment, because it was I pitched an apartment um sketch on Mr. Show. Really, yeah, we didn't. We never ended. I don't think I ever wrote it even would it have been like one of the black and white type of things or we would

have shot it in black and white. If ever, if I had ever written it, I don't think I wrote it. It was we I remember at the time. I forget why it was in the news, but the Pope's apartment was in the news that he had an apartment. I see where this said it, and so I was like, hey, what if we did a sketch about the Pope's apartment where all the bishops are like bringing in the little boys and Bob and were like write it up? And who know? I mean it was one of those pitches

where maybe it didn't have legs or whatever. I couldn't, you know. I did that show when I was very young and not that smart. Yeah, how old were you? Then? That's crazy And you came in not at the very beginning, right, well not really, I mean I was there I was around from the very beginning. Actually, I the first time I ever did did comedy was the summer July of and it was because Um, I was. I was, I had written, I was in theater and I had written

a lot of plays. And I moved back here to l A and I was my friend and I had written this pilot, which is like an sort of trying to be a better nine O two who essentially with like interesting scenes and funny scenes. It was basically when the O C you got on the air. I was like, oh, that's sort of what I was going for. Um. But you know, it was okay, and I you know, we showed it to some people and some people liked it, but you know, I didn't know how to break into

the business or whatever. But I remember I had a friend who moved down here that I was in a show with up in Sacramento, who I showed it to, and she was just like she called And I remember being in my apartment in AZUSA and her calling me and going like, Okay, I read your script. It's just so it's bad, it's just so it's not I hate it. And I was like, okay, she goes, but you're so funny, Like, you're such a funny guy around you know when I hang out with you. Have you ever tried doing comedy? Um?

She goes, I have a roommate who's in who is in comedy, and you know, like and I had known that because I a couple of times she had invited me to some things. And I remember I had gone to a party and I talked to this guy for a while and he was like, Oh, you're a writer. Oh cool, what have you written? And it was Bob. Talked to him for a while, and he gave me his card and a flyer, a flyer for like a show that was coming out. Um. So she's like, why don't you do this show? My friends have this show,

um at the comedy store. Why don't you do this show? And just you know, I think you could be really funny if you tried comedy. Um. So her roommate whom I picked up at the airport, um, when she moved here to l A and drove to my friend's house, was Karen kil Garreff. So that's how she They were like friends from Sacramento. And so that's how my friend knew all these comedians. Right. So the person with the

show was Marylynn, Rice cub and CJ. Arabia. They both did this show at the Comedy Store on Sunday nights called Windows. So I just tried it out. But weirdly enough, back to your original thing was um, she asked me to do it and then so I was like, okay, And then that week I went to go see Bob and David's live show because of that flyer Bobby had given me. Was this when they were like a restaurant.

They were at a place called the Upfront in Santa Monica, which was like a real theater um that you could rent out. I did some shows there too, but um, the restaurant was a different place, which I ended up performing with them a lot actually at that place. Yeah. And I saw Pulp perform at that place too. Yeah. So uh, but I went to go see their show, um, which I think was called the cross Odin Kirk Problem

at the time. Um. But um, also all of HBO was in the audience, and Bernie Brillstein was there, and like, and I knew who Bernie Brillstein was because I grew up fascinated with comedy and s n L and all and wanting to be on it and all that, but I just never knew how to do it. Um, did you think that was something available to you? Though? No, I couldn't figure out how to do it, I remember. So. So I loved Letterman and that was my main love,

and I wanted to do something like Letterman. Um. But then I also things there wasn't a lot of you know, this is pre internet, so there wasn't a lot of like material you could read about stuff. So I remember reading a book about stand up comedy, you know, and it had like interviews with Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Lewis and people like that, and I was like, oh, okay,

maybe I should do stand up comedy. So I tried it when I was eighteen, and I was doing essentially like Jerry Seinfeld style bits like observational bits, you know about thinking have you ever seen this yet? That kind of stuff. But then I never did it again. Um. So I just kind of was like, I don't think I can do comedy. If I could ever audition for sn L, maybe i'd be good at it, but how

do you even do that? I And and there was no UCB Theater or anything like that in l A. So um, the Groundlings were there, but I went to go see their shows and I didn't like them all that much, and I was like, I just don't even know how to do it. And then I saw Bob and David do that show and I was like, oh, okay, oh yeah, I know how to do it now. I was like, oh, yeah, that's stuff that I do around the house. Um, I never knew you could do that

as comedy. So are you doing character stuff just for fun? And it wasn't even character stuff. It was like just sort of like type a type of humor that I did not think could be popular where that went further

than other types of humor in a way. You know, the fact that they were cursing a lot during their their sketches was like sort of mind blowing, but just their subject matter and the way they approached the topics, I was like, I felt a real kinship too, because it was it was stuff that that me and my friend would do to make each other laugh and our friends laugh, you know, around the house or around the restaurant we worked at. So I was like, oh, well,

that's the type of stuff I'm interested in doing. So that combined was seeing in Andy Kaufman special that week, like a documentary about him. I was like, Oh, let's do like an Andy Kaufman meets Bob and David type thing, which I did at the Comedy Store. And you know, the people who were at this show were like Bob and David, Jenny Garrafflo, Sarah Silverman, like all those types

of people were there at paul if Thompkins. They were there every week, and I just felt, you know, the first time went so well that that Mary Lynn and c J were like, Oh, come back in two weeks and do another thing, and just like never stopped. You know. Yeah, it was very And Bob was there the second time that that my friend and I performed at it, and he was like, hey, um, I have the show. Maybe you could write for it. It's spot on man, that's

so good. God damn it. Yeah that's or the other Bob. Yeah. So it was just like one of these weird things I was. I was very fortunate in the sense of, first of all, I just think kind of you know Mr Show when it was a boys club, I mean there was a there was a sketch about it being a boys club. It really was in a way. Um, but Karen was writing for them. Rite or Nar never wrote,

but uh no, we never had a female writers. Say, Sarah was the one who Um was offered, but she I feel she did that Dave Chappelle pop movie instead, Right, I forgot about that, but yeah, just it. So I was sort of fortunate in the sense of, like, you know, I was a white dude in l A. And I was also fortunate in the sense of, like it just didn't feel like there was as much competition back then

as there is now. There's so many funny people in l A. And they have a place to go to, you know, with the UCB Theater, and now it's like there's just too many funny people. You don't know how to feel like that's kind of the case. It's hard to given parts it out now. Yeah, but back then I was twenty five and Bob was like, oh wow, yeah, I see a kinship between our senses of humor, and so he just really like adopted me and my friend

in a way and was in our sketch shows. If I ever had a sketch, I wanted him to do anything like yeah, okay um and come up and introduced them if he felt like the crowd needed pumping up. He was like Bob Odenkirk and this is pre you know, Breaking Bad, before he became Bob Odenkirk. At the time around l A was like he was quality, you know, and so for him to come up and introduce a show and say that he endorsed it was, you know, a big deal and and so that's you know, that's

really you know, how I got started. It was such a special time. Um, just the collection of talent and everyone, it seems like went on to do great things. And then the way he and David were together and just from the from Bob in the suit to Dave and the cargo shorts in the baseball cap, like the way they played off each other was just like I can't imagine, Like it's one of the great times in comedy. I think. Yeah, it was really crazy, and we all hung out together

every night. Um, and you know, pre cell phone you had to It was basically like you had to figure out where everyone was going that evening by a big phone chain, you know, like who you know his house, We're going to be well it wasn't even a house. It was like what bar are you going to be out?

So and that was always based around either a show that was happening, like okay, there's an alternative show that just started in Santa Monica at this place, so we're all going to watch the show and then hang out with the bar afterwards, or if there was no show, it was just like what bar are we going to be out tonight? And so around two in the afternoon or so, everyone would start sort of that phone chain and start calling up and going where have what have

you heard? What have you heard? Are we going to hang out? And I mean that was back when you could talk to your friend on the phone for an hour, you know, um, And so yeah, it was really cool. And then we were just constantly in each other's shows, and it was like if anyone said, hey, there's this fun thing, you go, yeah, okay, let's let's do it.

If any of us had an idea and go okay, let's do it, and that is that's sort of translated to now where I feel like all the people from that era, I feel like I can kind of ask to do anything and they'll say yes, and I would say yes to them, you know. So I know that if I call up Paton Oswald and say Hey, can you do a part in this thing? Or can you can you write me a blurb for this or can you be at this fundraiser or whatever? He'll say yes,

or Bob or any of those people. You know, it's just it really seems like something where we would do anything for each other, because that's what it was like back then. You would do any of each other's shows. And everyone's just still in touch and tight enough. I mean, there's always it is interesting to me the people who

sort of fall away from it, you know. Um, but but yeah, I mean, you know, I wouldn't say that every single person who was ever involved, but the whole Mr. Show Bond is such that, you know, Tom Kenny, for instance, who I maybe we'll see once every two years. Anytime I see him, we gotta stop in, like, you know, have a true conversation for for a half hour about what's going on because we have that that Mr Show Bond. Yeah,

that's so cool. Yeah. Uh, I didn't know. I mean I was a kid in Georgia, so I didn't know. And I've talked about this on the show. I had no idea that that world was available to people. Um, I didn't know that that could be a job. I didn't know that. I could have moved to l A after college and tried to do stuff surprisingly easy. If you look at my life story, you show up to a bar and offers you a job, that's great. Um,

so yeah, I had I had had no idea. I mean everything worked out in the end, uh, with my weird throughout my life took But I always get jealous when I hear of people that had that experience of being here in their early twenties and sort of those salad days before it got too crowded. It is. I mean, yeah, but you hear I I read sometimes about people who view like the Earwolf, the network that I started, the podcast network I started, the comedy Bang Bang Is on.

People view that in the same way. In a way they go like, oh, I just have you know, it just seems like a magical place where everyone's hanging out together all the time. Um. I would say the people younger than I probably are hanging out together all the time, you know. But the romanticism that people have when they think about those types of things as an outsider, as an outsider, some of it's true, some of it isn't.

But um, for for me starting out, it really was very romantic until kind of everyone started to fracture right in the late nineties. Yeah, it was just a special time that between that and like the State, Yeah, it was just sort of the birth of a new movement like this is not your this is not your parents comedy, yeah, or not even your big brothers and your big sister's comedy,

you know. And and I think everyone was sort of building on what had come before us, like Monty Python or the Kids in the Hall and stuff like that. I mean that, you know, comedy Bank Bang the TV show was really my love letter to comedy in a way, like every every one of the episodes we did, you can I hope that people can tell like this is me saying comedy, I love you from the people that

I put in it. Uh, you know, I would. I would sit there and have kind of a checklist of like, okay, we've had three of the kids in the Hall on can we get the other two? You know, we've had the um se TV is the only we only had one person from SETV. I was so bummed because everyone else turned us down. But Dave Thomas played my dad on it and was so great but every other SETV

person was said no, but was like that. For me, it was just like, you know, I want, I want to share my love of this art form that I've I've loved ever since I was a kid and sneaking, you know, sneaking looks at SNL late at night. I had it. It was not allowed through Monty Python when I was thirteen, and um, you know the kids in the hall and everything. Um, I really that's that's what Comedy Bang Bang, the TV show it was for me was. You know, if you see Michael McKinnon in it, it's

because Mr Mom No, no, not Michael. Michael Kinton would have been great on it. I think he turned it down. But if you see Michael McKennon, it's it's not because I'm like, who's a good actor, Michael McKeon, it's because I fucking love spinal tap and um, and he's only on it, I think because of his comedy background and he such a pleasure to work with, Like I've worked

with him on Mr. Show. But Michael McKean doesn't need to do a comedy Bang Bang, but he's doing it because of that bond that I think and the chain of of respect that I think comedians have for what came before and what came what comes after, you know what I mean. So that's why when I'm asked to do comedy things like someone's podcast or whatever, I usually try to do it because, um, it's just that that chain is very important to me. Have you seen a

Little Women? By the way I was, Oden Kirk is just one of those guys for me that it's really hard for me to I can on Better Call Saul, like, he's such a good actor that on Better Call Saul and never think about, oh, that's my friend that I've really that I've worked with for years and years, He's never think about it. But on Little Women, it was the minute he walked in my wife and I like

burst out laughing. Yeah, I didn't know he was in it, and so the same thing I've forgotten and then suddenly he was like, oh it turned into a bit all of the sudden, Hello daughters. Yeah, I was just like I just started laughing. But no, he and and he did such a good job that I was able to forget that pretty quickly because he just sort of became

this like kind of lovable dad. But yeah, as soon as he walked in the screen, I was like, oh my god, I feel like I'm watching a sketch all of a sud I think because it's period, because had this big Mutton child. Yeah, Nebraska, I'm able to lose myself in. Yeah. Yeah. Johnny Anna is another guy who's a friend of mine who's like, I can lose myself in anything he's doing, and I'm not. I'm thinking of the character, not him. But that one was a tough

one because it seemed like a show sketch. It totally did. It was great though. Yeah, I love it. And it was a fairly crowded theater and uh, I think it heard like seven or eight people kind of chuckle under their breath. Yeah, all right, I get it. Um Well, thanks for indulging that. Man, I appreciate it. Uh. Maybe there'll be a Mr. Show movie one day, like the National Lampoon Movie or something like that. I mean, we

really wanted to do. When I first started working on Mr. Show, they had a script called was it called Hooray for America? I think it might have been um which and I remember we we do read throughs of it, and I was always like, man, it's brilliant this it's so good. But then they were like, oh, no one will make this movie. It was all about global cam taking over the world or something. And so then when we set

out to make the Mr. Show movie. UM, I remember the first three days, Bob was gone because he had some other job, and so it was me, Brian and David. We're the only people there. And we wrote so many scenes for it, and they were all really really funny. And then Bob came back and was like, UM, I don't I don't think these are too weird for I don't think um, we can get this movie made. I think because of his experience with Hooray for America it

was too weird. So instead we went down this route of like trying to do a He kept bringing up Adam Sandler, um happy Madison or happy Gilmore, like with the audience needs to really relate to the character, um, which then what was supposed to be a fun six weeks of writing a movie turned into two years of hell. First of all. UM. But at the same time, I don't think he was necessarily wrong about that. I think

looking back, they never made Hooray for America. UM. I don't think the world was ready for a true Mr. Show movie at the time, and I think now a place like Netflix would make something that was a little more like it. That said, if you go back and read the script to Hooray for America, because I think they published it, it's not that good. But did you work on Run Running Run? Yeah? So that was that was coming off of my season and Mr Show that

I wrote on UM. Bob and David said, Hey, anyone who's a writer right now, do you want to write this movie? Be with us. It'll just be a fun six week thing and then and then we're done. And only five of us said yes, Bob, David, Brian, Uh, myself and b J. Porter. We were the only five who said yeah, we want to do what. Everyone else was sick of it so they left UM and it just was the worst experience. It's okay, it just is like watered down. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I

was such a fan of all of that. I was just sort of in, Yeah, all I can see are the bad parts of it there. There's interestingly enough, uh Billy Wilder, whom will be talking about for the Apartment, I was I reread conversations with Wilder last Night The Cameron Crow Book where he interviews Billy Wilder, and Billy Wilder has the same kind of point of view of any film of his that is not well regarded, where it just doesn't even want to talk about it. He's

just like, oh, yeah, that didn't work and interesting. I mean I could go on and on about it for hours, but it was just it's such a bummer in every frame of it. I look at it as missed opportunity. Yeah, all right, well we'll segway into the Apartment. Uh nineteen sixty of course, Billy Water, like you said, Jack Lyman, Fred McMurray, um and mc adorable, Shirley McClain just just so spunky and cute and competent and smart. Is cublic. Yeah. I had never I only I knew her as an

older woman basically in terms of endearment or whatever. I didn't really know anything about her. So The Apartment was the first time I'd ever seen her as in her prime in a way, I was just like, oh my gosh, she's amazing. Yeah, yeah, she was great. How did this movie? Um, how did it come to you? Like, when did you first discover it? So I think in nineteen eighty eight or eighty nine, either my first year or second year

of college, I was in an acting class. Basically my college experience was this, UM I had I think I had some morning classes that I had signed up for, like eight am through noon, UM, and then I had an acting class at two, and then I had my theater shows at night. But pretty quickly in my schedule became uh doing theater at night and drinking beer with my friends in their van until five am, sleeping until noon,

and then getting up to do my acting class. And I basically flunked out of the other classes or canceled um or whatever. So but I was in this acting class UM with a I think his name was Mark was the teacher, and he reminds me of Mark Marin, so imagine Mark Marin. He was kind of a Mark Marin type. And UM, he wanted me to do a monologue where I had to do a lot of action, where I had to do a lot of prop business

because that was whatever was happening that week. Um. And because I think, I think when you're an actor, like a young actor, you get used to doing stuff like speech competitions or whatever where you're or monologue is where you're like talking to the audience and and he was like, well, that's not reacting. Like when you're on film, you're gonna have to be doing a bunch of stuff, you know, like prop business. So so he said, have you ever seen the Apartment? I had no idea what it was.

He's like, I'm gonna give you a monologue from the Apartment. I want you to be like cooking spaghetti while you're with a tennis racket while you do so. Um, I don't know that. I saw the movie before I did the monologue. I basically like I got the action I was supposed to do and did the monologue and I'm sure I sucked. I was terrible. Um but um but I but that was around when I saw it for the first time. Yeah. So so it came to me through there and Jack Lemon, another guy who I only

knew was an old older actor. Um. Immediately was like, oh man, he's amazing, acclan amazing. Uh. Fred McMurray. I had only known him through Flubber, um My Three Sons for Me and Flaboria. So um yeah, just and I had never seen a movie like it either. That that balanced the tones that it does in the way that it does, I've never really seen so it just it just became. And I didn't really know Billy Wilder or anything like that. I just liked the apartment, you know that.

That was all I really knew. Yeah, I think my um entry point for Billy Wilder in this movie was was Cameron Crow that was such a fan of his earlier work and which one is the first? Love Say Anything? Loved Singles? Um, I mean singles was the confluence of of the music. And I still have never seen it. Oh really yeah, and I and I love Saying Anything, and I love Jerry McGuire, but I've never seen that. Seems little parts of it on cable every once in a while. Yeah, I'm not sure how it would age

because I haven't seen it in a long time. But uh, yeah, singles Say Anything. I love Jerry McGuire. Um. I loved Almost Famous. I don't really like it for whatever reason. I really reading the book last night. He's he's writing Almost Famous while he's writing that book, because he keeps talking about his project that he's putting off writing. Yeah, what so he can write this book about Billy Wilder.

And I kept going like, Oh, I wonder which movie wasn't For some reason, I thought was Vanilla Skuy or something. But then he talks about how it's autobiographical. I was like, oh, this is almost famous. Well, and so maybe you want to rewatch it. It's funny because the beginning of Jerry McGuire obviously is a complete rip off of the beginning of The Apartment with quoting the statistics about the size of the earth or the city or whatever. And I always knew that, but I didn't It didn't really hit

me until I watched this last night again. Um that the attempted suicide, the overdose scene is a straight up almost famous because the exact same thing happened. Kate Hudson took the overdose. They rushed in there, they put the tube down her throat, and then and then he, uh Patrick Fugit has left to Um sort of care for her, not for two days, but he has then in the position that Um that Baxter was in of having this sort of caretaker relationship for I saw it when it

first came out. I've never seen it again, so I don't really remember. That's really interesting, Yeah, and you know, it's not like Cameron Crowe. He's very much has said, you know, I've taken from barred from Billy Wilder, So I don't think I like discovered something, right, I'm not out at him. But it was when I was living here that almost famous came out. Saught it. The Vista read about Cameron Crow telling the story of trying to get Billy Wilder to be in Jerry McGuire. He wanted

him to be the sports agent, Yeah, the elder statesman. Yeah, mentor figure who kind of comes in every once in a while. And he's talking to camera about which would have been fantastic. Yeah. Um. But and he tells the story about bringing Tom Cruise in as the heavy hitter, right, and I remember distinctly said no, And he said I could tell about the on Tom's face that that is not a word that he hears very much. Yeah. Yeah, he tried twice. He did it by himself and then

he brought Tom in the second time. Is like, I gotta land this Tom Cruise just gave him the whole Tom Cruise pitch, and um, he was not interested. Didn't know who Cameron Crow is, and he loved that. He said, no, you know, he's like I'm not an actor. Get out of here. But then, to his credit, watched it and was like, oh, is that the part that I was supposed to do and loved it and then reached out to Cameron Crow was like, hey, I liked your movie.

Well that's cool. And that's how the book came about is Cameron Crow wrote an essay about that, about the fact that he was trying to get Billy Wilder to do that part for Rolling Stone. I believe. Yeah, that's where which Billy Wilder's um people sort of saw and said, hey, maybe you should do And so that whole book conversations with Wilder is um. Billy Wilder thought it was going to be for Rolling Stone. He was going to be

an article. He's like, where's your column? We'll just do this for your column, and Camera Crow kept kind of going, I think this could be bigger. I think it could be a book. He's like, no one wants to read this. Um. But then after like the fourth interview kind of settles into it and likes Cameron Crow so much that it then becomes like a year long thing where their buddies and they go, you have dinner a lot like like Billy Wilder and his wife and Crow and his wife,

and and it becomes like a real friendship. You know, it's really amazing. That's so cool. Uh, I can't imagine, Like I remember reading that he was in his nineties and he would still go to his office every day and I'm not sure what he was doing, but he, well, Camra Crow like puts in anything you would do. That's it's cool about the book. He's like in the middle of the interview, he goes and then he gets a

call and then describes what the call is about. And he's just like taking calls where he's like, why no, I don't have the rights to it. Well, I don't know called paramount and he slams it down. He's like, oh, someone wants Someone is asking me if Sunset Boulevard would be good set in the nineties, and I don't care, like call the paramount. I don't have the rights to this. And then he complains about like the adapt to the

Andrew Lloyd Webber adaptation. He's like, this sound was too bit like it's totally just kind of Crow puts in everything that happened, which is really interesting. That's amazing. Well, and I guess um, because he had had the experience of being a kid ingratiating himself to these bands. He must have a real skill for doing that. Probably if

he broke through Billy Walders. I wonder what that is about about him, Like is he just I don't know, inquisitive and and comfortable in those situations, or maybe I mean, is it genuine? Is it something where he's like, you know, is it something that he feels like, Oh, this is the thing I can do. Or it's probably a great listener, would be my guess, because when you get in the rooms with the bands and the Billy Wilders, they probably

are it's probably pretty lopsided conversation. Probably, yeah, and you have to be good at just shutting the funk up. Yeah, probably. I mean I do. I read the book last night, and yeah, I don't know the camera Crows ever like interjecting all that much and like offering his he eventually gets there. I will say the book, most of the Billy Wilder stuff that you're interested in is the first couple of interviews. It's almost like Cameron Crows trying to

get every question he's wanted to ask. And then the rest of the book is more like, Okay, let's do a deeper dive on this, you know what I mean. It's a fascinating book, though it's Yeah, check that out. Yeah, a friend of mine worked on Elizabethtown and said, like, he's also a genuinely good guy and was great on set and very crew friendly and just a guy. Yeah,

which you never saw elizabeth Town. Uh, not great. But my friend was a wardrobe supervisor who was from Elizabethtown and got to work in Elizabethtown on the Town movie and got the key to the city. So it was kind of a cool, big deal for her. And in fact, she did you say you worked on the Onion movie or no a little bit. I think she worked on that. I was never on set or anything like that. So, um, the the origin and you probably know it, by the way,

if anyone's listening. We talked about the Onion movie before, and I don't watch any of the Onion movie and think any of it was attributed to me. I worked on after the fact when they were then when they wanted to film a brand new movie right that maybe used some of the footage from that instead of releasing what they had. They were they were like, so I I started writing a whole new movie right, and then

it all got shut down. So please don't watch that movie and think I had anything to do with it. My instinct now, because I'm so binging on your shows to say, well, wait a minute, this an episode of setting the record straight, thank you, I think it is. Um. So,

I'm sure you know. The origin of the film, though, has a few different stories, but I think Billy Wilder said it was a movie from director David Lee Brief Encounter, a Brief Encounter that had just a similar sort of so he talks about it in the book where he's basically because Cameron Crowe is trying to set the record straight, and he's like, was it based on this person in Hollywood? Which is which is a rumor about a guy who whose mistress killed himself in an apartment or something like that.

Is it about this story? And he's like, no, I was just watching Brief Encounter one day and there's a scene where these two I think married lovers are meeting in France and one of the guys, the guy who's meeting this woman, says, oh, this is like a buddy of mine's apartment, and um, Billy Wilder went jeez. I

feel bad for the guy who's apartment. It is like essentially they're having sex in his apartment story and he's got to come back and these people have just you know, has sex in his bed and he he just he wrote that down in his book and it was something that he thought of for for many years. Um and and the code, the sort of what what was permissible

in movies. He could never do that idea until until nine when everything sort of relaxed and they he was finally able to do a movie about this sort of mature subject matter, which is is all about you know, adultery, and it's it's kind of like a sixties sex romp in a way, but serious. Yeah. I mean it's very racy for the time. And I know there were stories of Fred McMurray um being accosted in the street and like literally getting hit with the purse and people saying like,

how dare you? I watch you in these Disney movies and how could you do that? Fred McMurray was another guy who was like, I can't do this movie, Billy. The whole book is filled with like people having heart attacks right before they film. That happened a lot on those movies like The Fortune Cookie and Peter Sellers had a heart attack in the middle of one of the films and had to drop out after a film for a week. Um. Charles Lawton, I think also had like

a heart attack right before. It was like because everyone was drinking and smoking. That's why I started saying. I was like, everyone's fucking I have an heart attack. But Fred mcburry was a guy I was like, I'm not going to do this movie, and I think whoever was doing it dropped out and like Fred come to and Fred mcbury, by the way, Double Indemnity, he's so another Billy Wilder movie. He's so great in that and a very quotable movie that my friend and I were constantly.

I still say things from it all the time, like that tears it but um but uh. One of the funniest stories that Billy Wilder tells about Fred mcburray from the Apartment is there's that scene where he's getting his shoes shined and he's flipping a quarter uh, absent mindedly in front of the guy shining the shoes with his thumb, flipping it in the air, almost taunting him with it,

like you may or may not get this. And then the guy finishes shining his shoes and Jack Lemmon comes into the frame and and Fred McMurray flips him the quarter and goes, thanks a lot, and the shoeshine guys like, oh wow, thank you so much. And he leaves and for some reason, the quarter wasn't flipping right, and Billy Waters saying, like, Fred McMurray is a very cheap guy. Okay, that's one thing you got to know about him in real life. So he's like flipping this quarter and it

won't flip right. And I come over to him and I say, all right, it's okay, Fred, We'll just swap in a fifty cent piece and Fred goes, I would never tip him Fred, fifty cents. I can't act in this scene. Wow, that's fantastic, that's hysterical. Yeah, he's so good in this movie too. Um, he's so funny in it. Yeah, and just a total slime ball. Yeah, yeah, playing a part because you know the whole setup it was, there's so many kind of cool little twist and turns for

a for a romantic comedy. Um, and he you know, the whole setup is that he has you think that he is gonna be the stand up guy, when in fact he's just after that key and and there's that great scene with Lemon where he's like, you know, trying to get the key from him and trying to get him, trying to get him to make the leap of Hey, I want the key to your apartments so I can shoot on my wife without having to say it, which would which for a boss would be it would implicate him.

It would well it also would like lower his status if he had to, you know. So he's he's playing very high status in it, where he's just like, so, you see, I want to give you these music Man tickets, but I want to trade them, but I want to swap. I want to make a swap. And then Jacquelin's like, why there's nothing I can swap before? I mean, I just want to go home and go to bed tonight,

So you just give the tickets to someone else. And Fred McMurray's like, it also says on your reports from your co workers that you're bright and that you you know, like can make you know, make the leap to a

certain thing, you know. But yeah, it's it's it's really interesting about this movie because it does start as like a kind of very comedy sex romp um and broad, kind of broad and and you know, the idea for it is is a great idea, which is basically, what if that What if this guy who has this apartment all of his bosses wanted to come in and cheat on their wives in his apartment, and so he climbs up the corporate ladder by giving them the key and

juggling them all in a very complicated schedule where he has to leave his apartment for hours in the rain and stuff. It's a great setup and it could have just been that. So it could have been like a Rock Hudson Doorstay style sixties sex rompt with Tony what's his name? Not Tony Curtis, Who am I thinking of? He would come in and sing on Letterman all that know. You would come in with Mandy Patinkon. Okay, it'll come to me. Um. So it could have just been that.

But then the part where it switches into drama is really interesting, which is basically, um, Jack Lemon gets everything that he wants with Fred McMurray the slimeball saying like, hey, I'm going to give you a promotion if you give me your apartment, and he goes, great, and I have these music Man tickets that he swapped me for. I'm going to ask out the girl that I've always liked, the elevator operator operator. And she goes, oh, yeah, well I have an appointment, but i'll meet you. I'll meet

you there. Yeah, she agrees to the date. Yeah, I'll have to I'll have to do this. I have to do this thing first, but i'll meet you there to day. I'll be there by a thirty. And we're just thinking, oh great, who you know. And that's one thing that Billy Wilder says, by the way, is it is like if you can disguise your plot points in the movie, that's that's the sign of how well, how good of a writer you are, is how how well you're able

to disguise your important plot points. So she kind of off handedly says something like, oh, I have to meet someone, but i'll meet I'll meet you there at a thirty. So when it then becomes not Jack Lemon's p o V, and it becomes her p o V where you follow her to where she's meeting, and she's meeting Fred McMurray and she's basically going to have sex in Jack Lemon's apartment.

That's where it become that because it could have the premise could have sustained itself where it was just how to succeed in business type type movie, and that's where it deepens and becomes it's such a great twist and such a but a twist that then means this movie is going to have to be serious at because that's a it's not treated in this light way of like, oh my gosh, you know, there's gonna be slamming doors

and three companies types of stuff. It's treated as like she's just her attitude at the beginning, that she's upset that he's been fun king around and stringing her along because she's really in love with them, which I think is key to making this work. Exactly. She's in love with Fred McMurray and Fred McMurray is stringing her along and basically, you know, wants to be married and just wants to have sex with someone. And it's it just automatically deepens this movie and turns it now from a

lighthearted thing into a really deep, moving, affecting movie. Yeah, and it's it's one of my favorite things in movies where um and as a writer, it's so it's such a tricky thing on when to parse out information to the audience and when to part it out to the actual characters. Uh. And it's one of my favorite things when the audience is in on something that that your protagonist doesn't quite know yet, and it's about how he

learns that stuff. Because when you're watching the Apartment, you know ship like cublick Is is dating or seeing uh Shell Drake, but the Porsche love the poor schnook Baxter doesn't know this yet. So when we're gonna find this out, when's the shoe gonna drop? Yeah? And when is she going to find out that the apartment that she's boning

in his? And when she's going to find out that she has just one in a long line which she finds out that the Christmas the greatest office Christmas Party, all that it really makes you want to move to New York and work in office. In the scenes that Billy Wilder stages with a lot of people in them, I love those scenes. That was great. A lot of the movie is just two people talking, but all those scenes in the bars on New Year's they just make New York seems so alive and so much fun to

be in. Well, in the huge office with uh and I think he's forced perspective. Yeah, with kids in the back, just crazy. And then, like you said, all the bar scenes in the in the party scene, there was something about putting a hundred people in a shot that you just kind of don't see as much of it anymore. Yeah, exactly. Well, extras are back out artists. There's they're so expensive, and it's it really is a choice that you have to make,

and and it's it's a great choice. Yeah, I mean, it really makes it feel like a very lived in Everything about the movie makes I mean, they say his address in the movie, so I like, I went on Google Maps and it's like, uh, it's uh something. I can't remember the exact address, but it's fifty seven. It's the Upper West Side, right, So it's and he says, I'm a block away from Central Park, and so I knew sort of where it was appening. In the middle

of the movie. They say they actually because Fred mcbury says it's to the taxi driver like seven or whatever. So I looked it up and the that apartment is not there. But it's like it just really gives you a great sense of place. Yeah. Well, and the name of the movie is The Apartment. It was, Um, it's not The Two Lovers. Yeah, there's something to that. The

apartment is like a little character. And I know they took great pains to make it a little more um, sort of shabby and lived in than movies did at the time. Yeah, movies at the time they were Billy Wilder was saying, like, you know, everyone's He wasn't saying it like this, but in my opinion, everyone's houses and movies were sort of aspirational. People would go to see movies because they wanted to see someone living a better life than they had, especially in the in the thirties.

And um, you know, which is why these everyone's house were these grand sets, you know what I mean, And a movie like Philadelphia Story and stuff like that they had everyone's houses were big and they had staff and all this kind of stuff, and and um, Billy Wilder wanted this to be like a bachelor pad and for it to be realistic, and so it was kind of shabby, it was small. I mean, it's amazing for dudes like us. Oh yeah, this apartment with the fireplace, like a block

from Central Park at the Upper West Side. I mean it was like, you know, it's pretty, but for whatever reason in the sixties it was considered a little shabby. But there is even a poster on the wall that camera Crow. And he talked about where where camera Crow is, Like, what is that poster? That's like it's over by his fireplace, I think, and Billy Welder goes, oh, it's a print

from the museum. He goes, Basically, in my mind, Jack Lemon would leave his apartment and have to walk around the city all the time, so he would spend a lot of times in museums. So he bought a print from the museum. But because he's a bachelor, he doesn't have anyone to say like, hey, that would look better in a frame, you know. So it's just like tacked onto the wall. You know, it's like a touch of

glass essentially. That's pretty cool. Um, But the tone of it, like you were talking about, it's such a magic trick because it's it borders on that zany kind of thing at the time, especially early on with the recurring thing

of the doctor and the wife is the neighbor. Yeah, every time you see the doctor sees another girl go into his apartment, he's like, honey, you know, it's like it's like kind of sticky in a way, and it and it would have been great as just that, but but man, the moment that turn happens, then you know, we're then suddenly we're in a movie about suicide that has a very lengthy uh scene and where a doctor is basically trying to get Truley McClain to regurgitate the

pills that she's taken and slapping her in the face. And it's it's like in real time essentially just trying to get you know, they don't he doesn't slap her once and then it cuts, it fades. No, It's it's like is in real time of basically like she could go um and And I just had never seen a movie with straddling those tones really other than maybe a movie that I talked about on a different movie podcast, um something Wild. Uh that was great. Yeah, you know

that's kind of straddle the drama and comedy tones. Uh Jonathan Demi Demi. Yeah, So I talked about it on blank Check, which is um dealing with Jonathan Jami's uh filmography. Um one of and that I saw in eight six, and that was one of my favorite movies at the time because of that tone. And so when I saw The Apartment, I was like, oh, wow, this is doing the same kind of thing. Um and and not a lot of movies do that well, and especially in nineteen

sixty totally. I'm sure it was really divisive back then. Well yeah, Billy Wilder was saying that that. He got a lot of pushback and a lot of the critics. One of them, I think, famously called it a dirty movie. And but um yeah, I mean it's it just was dealing with more adult subject matter, adultery and and um. But but aside from that, is also just a movie about you know, how far you want to go and trying to succeed in life, climb up the corporate ladder

and um, which he was. He didn't really get the sense. He didn't. I think he does tell the story of how it started, and he wasn't seeking that out. He didn't offer up his apartment initially, right, was the first one, you know, the first one was one of his boss's,

Uh needed to borrow his apartment for some innocuous that's right. Um, which I think the boss was lying to him about why he needed it or whatever, and then all of it and then he couldn't say no after that, because if you say yes to one guy, your other boss says, hey, I need it, and it just became a thing for him. Well yeah, and then it's it's the outskirts of this movie that play sort of the zan nous of the time.

It's always rooted in these in these great scenes that are pretty realistic and believable between two people like you were saying, but then on the outside, like when the when the bosses would bring in the ladies that it was always kind of zany and wacky, and it's very sixties in a way, like all these like swinging dames and Fred McMurray has all this bebop lingo that he's constantly saying it like a dig And at one point

he goes, ain't that a kick in the head? And I was like, is did the song come first or did so? I looked it up and they came out at the same time. The Dean Martin song Ain't Had a Kick in the Head and the Apartment they both came out in sixty like within months. Of each other. But ain't that a kick in the head was was written for the movie Oceans eleven, which Billy Wilder did

work on the script for. Interesting, which Oceans eleven is a terrible movie, but he talks about it in the book about how Frank Sinatra gave him a present and he's like, I never liked Frank Sinatra, and Cameron Crow goes, well, why did he give you a present? He's like, I just did some punch up work on Oceans eleven. So I wonder if, like Billy Wilder was like, included ain't that a kick in the head? That was something that he said or something which Dean Martin and turned didn't

do a song. Interesting, Billy Wilder also loved Dean Martin and thought he was the funniest guy in the world. Well, because Dean Martin could have very well been the Shell Drake character. And he's in Billy Wilder's next movie One three. I haven't seen that, Yeah, I haven't seen Yeah, I have it at home, but I watched it yet. Well, and they brought back the kick in the headline again

later in the movie. I think Lemon references that somehow maybe it was Shirley McLain something about having been kicked in the head. Oh yeah, and they do that a few times. Well, it's really interesting because, um, just reading Billy Welder talk about script writing. UM, it's very as someone who's like just about to start to write another script,

it's very inspiring. And it's also I watched this movie last night and I rewatched it and I was like, it's also very intimidating because he just is such an expert at it. Um. And the two things he he talked about are if you if the stuff you do in the first act isn't paid off in your third act, then you're not succeeding, right, And he's he is paying off so many things. He's not only paying off lines,

he's paying off emotional theme, He's paying off scenes. He like basically the whole third act, like the last twenty lines of the movie are payoffs for something he's set up so expertly from the and and stuff that's so unexpected from like um, well, him donating his body to science as a great lover. He brings that back when he takes the bar lady back, right, because he starts

touting himself. You know, they say that should donate my body science and the last few lines are like, um, Shirley McClain innocuously, he's just talking about her life in the middle of the movie and how she got to where she's got is saying like, well, I wanted to be a I think a stenographer, but I couldn't spell, you know. And one of her last lines to Fred McMurray is him going like, what's wrong with you? And her are going, well, I'd spell it out for you,

but I can't spell, you know. And and Jack Lemon, when he's talking to Shirley McLean about her suicide attempt talks about his own suicide attempts and and how he accidentally shot himself in the knee instead of shooting himself

in the head. And but he talks about like the knee took me six months to get over, but the girl I was over in three weeks, and he goes, you know, and he and he starts, it's such an interesting comment on how someone you feel so close to for a while and you can be in love with a year later you cannot even ever think of them anymore. And he says, he says, like I still hear from her every Christmas she sends me a fruitcake and then

they go, hey, let's have the fruitcake tonight. And you think it's just like, oh wow, that's an interesting comment in life. And Shirley McClaine. One of her last lines, he says, well, what about Fred McMurray, And she goes, I'll send him a fruitcake every year. It's just like he's constantly paying off everything that he set up. He the gun that that he talks about, he pays it off in the last scene, Um with the champagne bottle.

That clearly sounded gun right. Um. But it's just like such an such an expert's greenwriter moved to be like and and and I know that sometimes when you see a movie, Um, you can roll your eyes at those kind of payoffs of like callbacks that you know, where like someone's calling back someone but that but Billy Wilder and what he said about is if you can disguise it, then they're not callbacks, you know, if you if the thing that that irritates people about those types of callbacks

is when they're so important in the first act and then obviously they're going to be called back in the third act. You know, what I mean, But you can disguise it where it's just like character and you're you're not even thinking that that's important, and then suddenly it gets called back. It's really really powerful. Yeah, you can't call too much attention to it. Um I think like writer types will notice that stuff, but an audience at large just knows that it feels good and feels right.

And I'm a writer type. And the fruitcake one, I didn't even remember it from all my previous rewatching, and it's just like, fuck Wilder and I I a l diamond that's still writer. These two are fucking so good at it, it's crazy. And then another thing on the callbacks, because at the very end of the book there's like sort of a bunch of random things that Cameron Crowe includes, like Billy Wilder's top ten tips for screenwriters and stuff.

But he also includes this speech that he wrote for Gary Cooper, um for like at a live event to to accept an award. Right, and Gary Cooper, I guess like did a lot of Westerns, I think, or um so so, but it wasn't used to talking all that much.

So Billy Wilder writes him this acceptance speech and he gets up In the first the first line is a joke and he goes, well, I bet you all thought that I was gonna get up here and have nothing to say except up, and everyone laughs, and then he goes through and thanks a bunch of people and all this kind of stuff, and has several other funny lines, and then the last line is he goes and if you asked me if I've had a wonderful life where I've just worked with the most amazing people, I guess

all I would have to say is yup. You know, it's just like fine, and I wasn't expecting it, and just like, God damn it. He's like he's he's good at disguising something as innocuous when you first hear it, and then just you know, it makes the payoff just really powerful. And and there's so many great little lines. Um a lot of murder Shirley McLean's, but they it doesn't feel like super script E of the Day stuff.

UM Like she has the one uh scene where where I think she first meets um Fred McMurray at the Chinese restaurant and he goes to see you cut your hair. You know, I like it better long because I know you want me to do you want me to leave you a lock to carry in your while it and and that line and the one about at the end she says, then you end up with egg fu young on your face. Like those are great fucking lines. I mean they don't feel like like I really sort of

clever lines. Yeah, it's He talks about how every scene, in every line almost should be something you haven't seen before, which the whole movie just feels like, how how do we execute this in a way that we have we've never seen it on screen before, not only this scene, this joke, this line of dialogue, you know, like we shouldn't be going to movies and watching stuff that was

in some other movie. And and it's hard because when you're a writer, you're like you're you're out there supposedly documenting life, but but as a writer, you're also this kind of an introspective kind of person who's not experiencing a lot, you know, and a lot of comedy. This is a problem in comedy scripts that you read is I read a lot of comedy scripts and there, and you can tell they're all written by like twenty six year old who have never done anything or never never

experienced any any emotional residence in life. They're all people who have like watched a lot of The Simpsons, you know, and so, um, I don't know. Yeah, it's just it's it's he they really had to end. You know. We're not talking about I A L Diamond a lot. But um, you know, obviously Billy Wilder's best movies, I think we're written with him so or most of his best so.

But yeah, I mean, it's it's just the I will say, like, the craft involved in this movie is a lot of what I respond to, uh, the emotional themes and stuff that's very important for Billy Wilder. Um, he talks about how you can't even start writing until you know what your theme of the movie is, you know, which is something that that stuff that we produce we talk a lot about, which a lot of comedians don't think about.

But but for this movie, I think I I respond to it and tonally and I respond to it in terms of craft and just how incredibly well crafted it is. Maybe a little more than the emotional resonance ofthing, you know, Like I I I love the end and it's not

too sweet. It's it's the combination as they talk about in the movie The Sweet and Sour, which they talk about in the in the Chinese Restaurant, you know, which is a meditextual commentary on the movie itself, basically like The Sweeteness Hour because it doesn't end with them kissing its Billy Wilder said he didn't think that Jack Lemon could even pull that off, like as a romantic lead, you know, like suddenly taking her in his arms and kissing her. So it ends with her basically saying shut

up and deal. Just one of the great moments, and you know, it's great, And Billy Wilder goes, would they still be together, you know, like six months later? I don't know. I don't even know. But it's it's more of a personal achievement for them both more than two people found each other. Like these are two people who have not had any romantic connection the entire movie. Have

them suddenly kiss would feel weird. Yeah, I think it would have been the wrong move because she has to go from being legit in love with with Chill Drake, Uh, being a fractured person. They've spen you know, the right amount of time on that backstory, uh to falling in or I don't even think falling in love with with back stir at the end. But the hope half of all in love would just seem weird because it would seem like, well, wait A meant you were just in

love with with Sheldrake. You can't suddenly do a switch. But what's great about it is that she suddenly sees, she sees a person, a like minded soul that has turned his back on uh and and found the strength to be his own person. And that's what she does as well. And so do they are they together? Do they end up you know, kissing? Ever? Who knows? Right, it's not about that. No, I don't think it matters.

Um he gets to profess his love, which felt real because he was Yeah, it felt like the right move. But she just if she was to say, yeah, I'm in love with you two stupid or whatever, it just

wouldn't feel right. Yeah. Yeah. And and the way they play out that whole ind sequence with her learning about um when Fred when Sheldrake's telling her, you know, and he said, you know, especially with Kublick, you can't use that apartment, and then she runs down the street and all things Zion is playing and it's the It's basically what Rob Ryaner ripped off for Inhering Men. Yeah. I mean everyone ripped it off because it's the best, but it's very uh. I mean now it feels like a

trope all this stuff. Um, but I don't know had had that been done before in nineteen sixty I don't know. I you know, I think Billy Wilder talked about the champagne cork and how that was ripped off from a previous movie of his as a gun as a gun thing. Uh. And so he sort of I think camer Crow brings it up and he's sort of like, you know right, He's very just like, yeah, yeah, we shot her. There's

no he said, there's no special lighting or whatever. Cameron crows like, how did you get her to look so like magical? And he goes, I don't know, we just shot it, right, she just looked that way. Yeah, exactly. It's such a great ending. It's so perfect because it manages to balance, like the whole rest of the movie, um, with the sweeten this hour. It's it's not overly sweet or sentimental, but just enough to like leave you feeling

hopeful and smiling. Whereas I was watching like The Fortune Cookie, which I've never seen, so I put that on today, which is Jack Lemon and Walter Matho and Sight and that so far, Like I'm forty five minutes into it. It's just the sour you know. I don't know, so I wasn't all that into it, but I haven't seen that one. It is an interesting balance, you know. Not all the Wilder's films are great. And I think he talks about IRMAA Deuce, which was the reunited, reunited Lemon

and McClane Wilder team, and he's just like it didn't work. Still, Jack Lemon was so good though, Yeah, uh days of Wine and Roses and like he had such a range. He was just one of the great some great physical comedy in it. Yeah, he goes little broad um like this stuff with the bowler had is just so cute and funny. Yeah, the the nasal spray squired is so funny.

And that was that was improv I guess from Jack Lemon. Yeah, and that was one of the few times Wilder let him improv, I think, and one of the few kind of sort of broad slapsticky things like that overt. But for some reason it really works it's really really good. I feel like I've tried to rip it off a few times. And then he squirts the flower to at

a certain point, yeah, which is kind of fun. Wilder also said that Lemon would come to at having like read through the pages with his wife the previous night and go like, I was uh talking to my wife and uh, we had this idea and we just thought it would be it would be like better if we did this, this this, And while there we go like, nah and let me go. That's what I was saying. It's a terrible idea, and even never bring it up again.

And while there was like that was what was so great about him is he never He wasn't like an actor who felt like he needed to defend his ideas and make sure they got in the script or whatever. If if I didn't like it, he would just stroll with it. Yeah, yeah, which is so funny. But speaking of ripping things off, there there's one scene that I have ripped off several times and in scripts and I it ended up being in the Ferns movie that I

just directed. So I just saw a few weeks ago. Okay, So the end with Fred McMurray, the final Jack Lemon Fred McMurray scene, um where um Fred mc murray says like, Hey, I'm taking Shirley McClain to your apartment tonight to have sex and if you don't like it, then you know you're out of a job. Essentially, um so wilder uh and I l Diamond. Very early in the movie set this up with Ray Walston, who was great at this.

It was really great, super broad yea. Um. But very early in the movie, when it still is like a light comedy, um, Ray Walston says, hey, uh, Jack Jack Lemon calls up. Ray Walston says, hey, you're supposed to leave the key under the mat to my apartment, and Ray Wilson goes, didn't I He goes, no, the key. You left a key, but it's not the key that works the executive washing I should have let oh I

must have left the executive washroom key. Huh. And that's just like you view it as a viewer as, um oh,

that's a funny complication, but it's not important. Right. So then in the final Fred McMurray seen, Fred McMurray says to him, Hey, you need to give me that key or else you're out of a job, and he has mentioned like, hey, what do you what do you think of the executive washroom in your office, and just casually mentions it is and you think it's As a viewer again, you're just like, oh, yeah, these are all the perks

that he gets. And Jack Lemon wrestles with with this decision because he's in love with Shirley McClain, and then you know, pushes the key across to Fred McMurray and gives up, we think, and then goes into his office and Fred McMurray has one, and we think, man, that sucks that Jack Lemon didn't stand up for himself, but I understand he'd lose his job. He Jack Lenon goes

into his office, he's tidying up. Fred McMurray comes in and says, hey, this is the key to the executive washroom, and Jack Lemon goes, yeah, I'm not going to be needing it anymore because you can take this job and shove it. You know. It's such an amazing uh, not only finally calling back this stuff that was planted in the first act, but it is one of the great like fake outs to me in movies of a character you think is doing the wrong thing, and he's actually

doing the right thing. So I've I try to put it. I try to rip it off in almost every script, all right. And and so when we were making the Ferns movie, UM, we ended up having one last final day right before it came out to shoot a totally new ending, um along with a bunch of other scenes so um that we just need to get so um. I like two days before shooting, I was basically had worked out with the studio what seene they would agree to in broad strokes of like, Okay, so Zach, if

you haven't seen the Ferns movie, who cares? Uh, this probably won't spoil it for you, but who cares about the plot? But it's Zack basically has sold out in Hollywood and um has is now doing cheesy talk show interviews like you see Fallon do or whatever behind and his team says, hey, this isn't you come on back to North Carolina and go back to doing the show the way it should be done, And he goes, you really want me to give up on all my dreams?

And meanwhile, the network executive is over here saying, Zach, we need to do promos, and they say, come on, come on back with us, and he and he just looks at them, shakes his head and walks and follows the lady into the studio. And then it cuts to his crew lonely going back to North Carolina, and he suddenly appears and he's like, where are you going? I

just went back to get my ferns. He's like, you think just because I didn't answer you and I silently walked into the studio and I'm telling you what I was doing. I wasn't coming with you guys. Of course I'm coming with you guys. And that is a direct rip off of that scene in the apartment. So great? Are you going to keep trying to do that? Yeah? If I can't, well, it's it's such a good it's such a good move. It's such a good screenwriting move. If I can do it, then I can. That's fantastic,

all right, man, you've got anything else? Uh? I don't think so. I mean, it's just it's it's great. Watch it, enjoy it. It's kind of a perfect movie. Yeah. Um, I guess the one thing I did want to mention was the other thing that they just as writer wise, Um, well, writer wise, that thing that he kept doing with oh yes, using wise on the end of something else. So this

is something interesting that you might not know. But so a lot of the the sophisticated characters who are Jack Lemon's bosses keep saying, um, something wise thy k adding wise to to each of their things, so like, so

apartment wise, how are we, you know? And it's it's meant to like sort of imply a sophistication or a fast talking type of guy Jack Leman wants to emulate, and he starts started talking that way, which then of course they pay off at the very end with Shirley McClain saying, I guess that's how it crumbles cookie wise, you know, which is her finally like telling Fred McMurray, I'm not with you anymore. I'm now thinking of of cc Baxter Jo. It's so great. It pends off the

very last Uh. If you read the script, the very last line is not shut up and deal. Um, there's a same description line that says and that's all there is story wise. Fuck, that's great. It's incredible. Yeah, And so that's just for the actors, and that's just for anyone reading the script. That's how good they were. They were putting jokes in there their descriptions. That is so cool. Yeah, I gotta read that book. Yeah, it's great. All right, thanks man, This is a big treat for me, and

you taking appreciate you have me on love talking about movies. Awesome. Thanks all right, everyone, I hope you enjoyed that. That was so much fun. I had to kick the dust off a little bit. It's been a while since I've done one of these. Uh. It was great. He was a good dude and uh so generous with his time. Um, it was so fun to talk to someone that kind of came into the podcast scene along the same time that we did with stuff you should know. Um, even

though his backstory pre podcasting is far far different from mine. Uh. He was a kindred spirit and a great guy, and I appreciate him making all this time for me. Um. Really cool to hear him talk about the Apartment and the fact that he he watched it the night before and read up on the Billy Wilder stuff. It's always appreciated when a guest really takes their time to to come in well armed, and he certainly was so. Thanks to Scott. Thanks to you guys for listening and we'll

see you next time. Go out and see the apartment if you have it. Yeah. Loomy Crush has produced, edited, and engineered by Ramsay Hunt. You're in our home studio at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts For my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.