Erica. It's another summer, which means it's time for us to read a
book. Did you read another book? The last book I read was the
last book we talked about on this podcast talking about a book today, So
obviously you read it, I you know. Okay, here's the thing.
I didn't read the book per se, like quote unquote the book that when
you went to the bathroom earlier. I looked at your notes. Oh no,
it's like I read the book. It's like, you know, notes,
it's Paul's notes exactly, It's Paul's notes. It's like Cliff's notes,
but it's so mean. Yeah, so I got the gist free of slurs,
but really personal a you know, it's I'm joking. I did.
I did actually read a book, genuinely. It takes so much for me
to read a book anyway, so that I'm very proud of myself. Well
it's good practice. So you don't forget how I love the idea of Paul's
notes, like like just like Cliff's notes, but fucking vicious. Yeah yeah,
remember that that character the gay best friend for Juliette. What are you
doing? What? What what are you doing? You really have a spin
off of that yeah, viral thing that was happening like ten years ago.
It's a little like Richard the Third, but like ew you no one wants
to see that. Why don't you go fuck your niece. Richard the third?
Gross King Hey on ball America And this is that aged well yesterday's Pop
Culture Today bonus episode. We are a content factory. We are we are
pushing these things out like duggers. Yes, this is this is our seventh
dugger baby. My editing bay is just a log flume of content for these
listeners, and they better appreciate it because I'm sweating. You're keeping a lot
of balls in the air. Yeah. So, our guest today is Jason
Klom. Jason is a comedian, he's a filmmaker, he's a voice actor,
and he's a writer. I want to talk to him all about his
time on the Seat of Alias. I was obsessed with the show, Jennifer
Garner queen, but we are actually here to talk about We're not worthy.
From in Living Collar to Mister Show, how nineties Sketch TV changed the face
of comedy. It's a mouthful, but it's very important and you can order
it from your local bookshop. You must you must, You simply must.
Jason, Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it. I enjoy the shit out of the show and on
both of you. At some point, I'm happy to tell you about my
Alias story. But I think it's boring. I think it's I shouldn't say
that. I think I've written it in something else that I'm pitching. Never
mind, it's a really great story. Fast. You definitely got punched by
Jennifer Garner, right, I didn't know, but she does watch me pass
You can still like, I am the reason she's watching the I'm all goffed
out and stuff. Yes, that's when I had hair and I could actually
pull off like I look good and I'm like, oh, yeah, you
are plot crucial to that episode. I really was, because she watched me
once. Yeah, oh my god, I want to hear every So it
was your natural hair. It wasn't a wig. What had missed opportunity?
That show was so good at wigs and also so bad at wigs. It
was all wigs at all times, all wigs all the time. Yeah,
it was. It was actually shot back to back with an episode of Crossing
Jordan that was also a vampire episode and named almost the exact same thing,
But that's for another time. That's are you like to go to nineties vampire?
Is this? What is this? What we're learning here? Mostly I
was go to guy with glasses in the fifties because they did a lot of
extra work. And then, uh, they said, hey, so I
pick up the phone, and they pick up the phone, They're like,
so you have like black hair and stuff like yeah, And I went and
dyed my hair permanent. I didn't think about it otherwise, So I permanently
dyed my hair black. Uh. And yeah, so that's how I got
two jobs in a row. What hey, whatever, you gotta make the
ends meet. Yeah, that's the hustle, friend. Yeah, it's a
gig economy. Got you gotta make it happen. All right, Jason,
So we have you here. We're going to talk about this book. I
read it. Erica read it. Despite some rumors you may have heard to
the contrary, we did both read the book. I learned how to read
just for this book. Actually, I'm honored. You're welcome. Yeah,
so we're really curious to find out when or how did you first become introduced
to sketch comedy. So as you can imagine rewriting or writing this book and
then rewriting it. I every time I read it, I was like,
I don't think that's actually accurate every time I would write down how I discovered
it, because it's just sort of always been with me sort of. But
I was thinking about I think in Living Color is like the first like cultural
introduction to sketch comedy. It might have been present elsewhere, and I would
like, I would like something somebody was in that I found out was on
this show called Saturday Night Live that my parents probably didn't let me watch.
In Living Color was like water fountain talk instead of water cooler talk. You're
a little kid, You got to the water fountain and you tell everybody like
what Homie the Clown did last night. And so while I was not popular,
I had no friends like, this was one of the few things that
I could actually relate to all the popular kids with, and so we did
have something to sort of exchange. And that's like the first time sketch was
like obviously a thing. I think my tiny bit of cultural shay from elementary
school. I was also equally very uncool, was that I had a Bart
Simpson T shirt before anyone else love it, and that was from Tracy Allmon.
I remember watching it on the Tracy Almond Show. I think the Tracy
Yalman Show was like a big We would all watch it on Sunday nights.
If Memory Services was Sunday, it could have been on Tuesday nights. I
don't remember, but I'm pretty sure it was Sunday nights. My family would
watch it. I remember showing up to school with like a Cowabunga T shirt
or whatever because I was so cool and the kid, but like genuinely like
other kids were like, oh, you have a Bart Simpson shirt, and
I was like, love it. This is my way in I will I
will follow comedy to the ends of the Earth. I was using at that
time Bart Simpson brand hair gel and I don't have the photo pulled up,
but if I pulled it up, it would look like you cast a little
child freshly as Bart Simpson because my hair was about that tall. Again,
when I had hair, it was very exciting. I did not have a
good I had a bootleg Bart Simpson shirt which was said teenage Mute Ninja Simpsons.
I don't know where my parents bought it, but it was a mix
of The Turtles and Bart Simpson. It was ugly, but I love classic
mash up though. Classic Yeah, it's so funny. I'm the odd man
out on this because I was not a TV kid growing up. I was
not allowed to watch TV. I woldout to watch the Cosby Show period.
End of story, go outside and play Wow. Okay, and that's it.
So I don't think I really got into sketch comedy. I would hear
about it, like I heard about SNL. I heard ABOUTE the Homie,
the Clown and all that stuff like, and I didn't don't think I actually
started watching until I was in college and some of my friends were into SNL.
Wow. So I don't. Like. We did Wayne's World a while
ago, like way back in like our first year, and my reaction to
it was like, I don't get it because like I completely missed that period
of like humor development in myself. And now I get it more and I
get it. It doesn't like hit me the same nostalgia button that it hits
other people my age. It's like a it's like a miss. Like I
was very busy reading X Men comics that was how I was cool. Okay,
Yeah, so so we have a sketch comedy not a neophyte, but
a you know, not a not a deep brained sketch comedy person. Then
we have two dare I say, experts, But you got through the whole
book. You still got through the whole book. Regardless. I did get
through the whole book. It was very interesting because it was I went to
theater school, and that taught me enough about like all these things that were
going on, okay that like I recognized a lot of it, like theater
games and and Harold's and stuff like that. Like in the book. Yeah,
like I knew what that was. So I was able to be like,
oh, all of this stuff that I just kind of did has a
history, and I didn't really know that much about history. So it's actually
very interesting. Oh good, all right, Well that's that's It's really funny.
Every time I've spoken to somebody this has not come up, and I
literally I think every time I like do it on social media, I have
yet to mention the fact that there are like six whole chapters on the theaters
that start in their life. The chapters. I forget that that's part of
the book, and it's my book that I just fucking wrote. Well.
I actually think one of the most interesting things about the book is how like
making all of these shows, it was such like a like a gorilla theater
kind of feeling to it. Like it it reminded me of theater school,
right, like you have this story how the kids in the hall realized that
they could expand the theater space just by putting one of them in the audience
and lighting them. And then suddenly it's like, as an eighteen year old
in directing class, I remember like moments like that, like do you have
a favorite aha moment that you did with one of these interviewers that struck you
as especially interesting or exciting. It's really hard because I'm going to run the
risk of repeating myself if I say all of them. I do particularly love
them discussing that moment because it is one of those things you take for granted
that you can do. I feel like the big aha moments were just when
I had my own sort of comedy nerd cred or my comedy nerd upbringing justified
for lack of a better word, when Bob oden Kirk did the same thing
you know what I mean, Like, there lots of that in reading or
in interviewing these people, where I was just like, okay, cool,
like I legitimately we've had roughly the same upbringing comedically, even though we couldn't
have been further apart as people. Although Bob Odenkirk and I, I dare
say, pretty similar in our obsession over the nitty gritty of Skellu comedy.
He clearly enjoyed talking to you because he is all over this book. If
you're a Better Call Saul fan, get to this book because it's filthy with
Bob Odenkirk context. Can I tell you I didn't, I will not and
have not watched any more than one episode of Breaking Bad. But because of
this book, I was like, I knew I was going to probably interview
him, So I started watching Better Call Saul, and shit if I didn't
like become addicted and have to buy season six before it was available because I
was just like, oh God, I can't not watch this. It's such
a good It's I don't know if I'll ever rewatch it. It's so distressing.
But yeah, so because of this book, I got kind of hooked.
But you know, I would say in terms of maybe not aha,
but just pat on the back moments. It was kind of an AHA.
When I asked Bill Odenkirk, because I spoke to Bill before I spoke to
Bob, I was like, look, I love I love Mister Show.
That is not a s I grew up with either, by the way,
I didn't see that untill college or after college. But I love Mister Show.
But it gives me fire signed theater vibes. And to have them both
not only say yeah, it's kind of there's some fire signed theater in here,
but like, we fucking love them, And Bob went kind of hard
on how much he loves them. He thinks people should appreciate them more.
So that was that was at least sort of that made me feel good.
I was like, okay, good, Yeah, I also really love Fire
Sign. They're not always my thing, but I like it when big people
sort of acknowledge them as as an influence. I wish I could remember the
sketch, and I'm bummed that I don't, But I remember vividly being like
in college and rewatching old kids in the hall, and there's a sketch where
Kevin McDonald's just like laying on the couch reading a book and then someone comes
in and then the sketch starts and the book he's reading is Uda Haggins respect
for acting, And I don't know why it is not referenced in the sketch.
It doesn't matter to the sketch at all. But I've never felt more
seen. I was like, Oh my god, And I guarantee it's so
funny because on so many shows you'll have like everybody's communicating with the art director,
who's connect communicating with the directors, connect communicating with the lighting all it's
all interchangeable. The vibe I got from Bruce McCullough was that shit was them,
like they were a hardcore on all this. He would tear posters off
the walls if they weren't right for a set is for a scene, And
I'm like, oh man, you you little enfant to read like you could
tell that's absolutely what he was. And he's obviously chilled out in his older
age now, but it's very funny that they were so fucking picky. So
I'm assuming Kevin was like, I have to have this book on set.
It would work without it. Solid Kevin solid Ken that's really good. I
love that you can pull like a random Kids in the Hall sketch eerica.
And when I was reading the book, I was like, ooh, a
Mathnet shout out. I watched Mathnet. That is the one that I watch
as a kid, the Square one math Net. I wanted to write more
about that. I really did, especially since I have like the longest interview
with Beverly Leech, who was a sweetheart. There's so much like she told
me her whole life story, and it was like, fuck, this is
great. She should write a book. Oh yeah, no Kids in the
Hall. When Comedy Central started airing them all summer long, that was my
summer, Like for fuck going outside, making friends, exercising. I just
sat on the couch all summer and watched Kids in the Hall sketches. You're
also in Miami, so that's really what you should do in the summer in
Miami. It is my understanding. Yeah, you shall not go outside.
It's fair. It's fair. So I have to So I have an odd
question for you. You have a line in the book that's tossed off very
casually stating that Dell Close who But for those of you who aren't unaware is
a legendary teacher, like improv teacher and co founder of Improv Olympic, and
that he was a practicing witch. Huh, okay, cool. How many
projects have you pitched in your head around this fact? It feels like it
could be an HBO mini series. I'm just spitballing here. Perhaps Hulu or
Netflix would like to get involved in this. Do you have a whole other
book about this? Oh? After the strike, obviously after the strike,
right after this short, do you know, like I assumed that everybody knew
how eclectic Dell Close was, and that if I peppered stuff like that in
there that either no one would question it or people would then be like,
a fuck, I have to dig up more about this man. That's one
of the reasons I did just toss the line off, because I'm like,
there's too much to go into. And weirdly, I've known enough practicing,
which is that it's like, oh, it's just a thing, you know,
like, and I guess I took it. But here's the funny thing.
Did you have you seen the Dell Close documentary that was on Hulu?
No, it's very good. My buddy James or Baniac plays Dell in the
flashbacks. It's really funny though, because like every story I got and every
story you'll get, they're like toned down versions of an Andy Dick story.
They are like, this man is a clear I think he was okay.
He was an addict, which means he was dealing with a mental issue,
right, so there's a possible illness there that made him drop his pants just
to make a joke. See, here's the thing. He's dropping his pants.
Make it. I'm not justifying it. It's still fucked up. Don't
do that. People don't drop your pants just to make a joke this episode.
Don't drop your pants just for a joke. But that that was his
thing, that was his ethos. I dare say, Handy Dick doesn't have
that ethos. So that's the difference. It's a very thin line. I
don't know how they made the documentary without showing how much of a potential pervert
Dell clothesman. It's good, it is really good. It is also very
much a Dell booster doc though. That's what one of the reasons at the
book is. I tried to like make it clear that he didn't create all
the things people give him credit for, but he did create most of them
and has a huge part in them. We also mentioned like his philosophy was,
if you're on stage, your job is to make everyone else look good,
yes, and then everyone looks good, which is very kind of beautiful
and like it's theater is sports right, Like, yeah, there's no Iron
team, there's no Iron cast either. Ha Look, I did a sports
sports. Oh you can't stop me. Now, go cool down and hydrate
my friends. I'm gonna go learn how to shot put or something. I
feel well, there's like that also that lovely ethos of like you know,
comedy comes from well, drama comes from conflict. Comedy comes from what's the
exact quote, like togetherness or I know that I know that comedy equals drama
plus time. I don't know the quote that you're trying to go for it.
I know mel Brooks's version, which is drama is I get a paper
cut comedy as I fall down a well and die. Like that's that's my
that's solid, all right. So this book Jason taught me a lot.
It taught me that that Goldie Hawn was a dance drawn laughing, which kind
of makes sure j Low. You really didn't know that. It's really funny
that you had no idea. I think you didn't know any but I had
forgotten it. Thing it taught me. It taught me that Alan Thick had
a talk show called The Thick of the Night. Yeah, which could not
sound more like a thirty rock joke. You could. You could put the
entire thirty rock writer's room together and tell him to come up with the perfect
joke, and they cannot top Alan Thick having a talk show called The Thick.
It's perfect in any case. This book also taught me about a sketch
show called head Cheese that starred Andy Richter that the MTV executives dubbed too fat
and too gay. So obviously I sprinted directly to YouTube and I found this
and I found it. It's all on YouTube. You have to search for
it a little bit. You have to look under Ben Zook, who's one
of the one of the cast members, and he supposted the whole thing,
the whole twenty minutes. It was delightful and so gay and so fat and
so delightful and enjoyable. Yeah. Do you have a favorite lesser known sketch
show that you think people should seek out on YouTube or the like, or
you know, like these little gems that you may have discovered. And writing
this, I would have first said, like maybe Almost Live, which people
absolutely should, There's no getting around it. I love that show and I'm
so glad I discovered it. My friend Brooke was like, Hey, you're
gonna talk about Almost Live in that book, right, I'm like, I
don't know what the fuck that is, so let me look it up.
And it turns out, yeah, this is great and it's brilliant. But
you can't find whole episodes of Almost Live if you want to watch something as
a as a piece. I'm a big fan of comedy albums, so like
albums, I would hunt out the Bert Firshner's Second Pilot, which is their
special They are very kind, they're very gentle boys, and I love them
so much. There's no meanness. They're just silly and at the same time
they sort of managed to like take interesting chances and they get a little they
get quite meta with their comedy, and that's the stuff I like in comedy.
And if you can manage to do that without being a mean prick,
that's honestly, it's unusual and they're just they're delightful. Nobody knows you they
are. Same situation. Another friend said, you're gonna talk about the Bert
Firsch nurse. Right, I'm like, you know, I don't know what
that is. You have to know that no one knows what that is.
And I interviewed most of those guys, made gave them their whole their own
chapter because I was like, I want to talk about one sketch group that
started, had a rise, got on TV, and then just cut right
off. Yeah, And they did seem so kind in that, like it
reminded me of like a little bit of a Carol Burnette energy of like it's
really kind of family is such a loaded house. Family a loaded word now,
but it is. But like like prime time ABC comedy that everyone could
sit down and enjoy and laugh and you know, no one's dick is gonna
flop out accidentally or something. Right. The most they're gonna do is,
you know, pronounce orangina or angina. That's a solid joke. That is
a solid joke. I would laugh again. It's fun to watch it as
a piece, whereas almost live you can pick and choose, go ahead,
there's a ton there's so much on there. Absolutely all right, So final
question for you, and then we're gonna do something. We're doing something fun,
right, so so don't don't done out listeners. So we're gonna be
something fun right after that. So as I'm reading the book, right,
as I said, I'm a neophyte in the sketch comedy world, like I
watched Carol Burnette. Actually forgot to mention that that was the one thing I
got to watch. But some of your descriptions maybe want to seek out the
shows like head Cheese, some of them made me think not for Paul's right,
I immediately searched out Viva Variety. I tried so hard to find that
knife throwing sketch that you talked about in the book. I could not find.
I couldn't find it either, but everybody seemed to corroborate that it existed.
So I had to go with Michael ia and Black getting knives thrown at
him for real, like a real, real life. But do you have
one of these shows that you think kind of speaks most directly to your comedy
spirit, Like what is the one that like of the more you know,
I know you just talked about the Bert Fischner's but what is Jason Klom's Spirit
TV show. Yeah, it's hard because I will say it's very It's easy
for me to do the not for Jason's list as well, because like,
there's a ton that's just like and hopefully you can't totally tell it throughout the
writing, but there's some where I clearly am not at as invested in telling
the full history or couldn't get you know. But what hits me the hard
it's still probably the State. I think the State is the one that is
the golden standard for me, and it's because of the deep memory I still
have. The State comes on and they do this sketch all about the teacher
standing in front of the kids saying, you know, it's illegal to say
I'm going to kill the president, and every time somebody says that, the
Secret Service comes in and arrests them. And I was like, this is
and I here's the thing. I'd never seen Monty python and this is like
one of the most Python things they ever did, and I hadn't seen Python
yet, and there is something about it that is now in my blood.
I will never forget that sketch, even though it's simple the premise is easy.
It's short, but that's it. Just everybody keeps getting arrested because they're
saying, I'm gonna kill the president. Yeah, it's so fucking good and
there's something that whole show just has the vibe. And I also appreciate that
there's a you know, there's a little bit of there are some identities in
that show that you don't see otherwise. There's an actual woman, there's a
gay man, there's a Jewish man, there's an Italian man. You know,
there's a lot of these guys and I don't know, they mix it
up. And I love that show very much. I was telling Paul,
I was like, there's a sketch you have to see, and I've just
totally ruined it for him. I was like, plunky tortures my mouth.
I'm like, fuck it, no, it's not funny. I should point
out that it was sorry to interrupt, but just that David Wayne wrote the
forward to the book, and like that was I still don't believe that that's
even true. Like I know he did it, but I don't believe it's
true. He did do it, and he did. He gave you a
very nice forward too. Yeah, it was very kind, all right,
So now we're gonna do something. We're kind of gonna mash up We're not
worthy the book with that age of all the show, and we're going to
talk about some sketch comedy, mostly from the nineties, a couple little earlier,
one much later, just as a palate cleanser kind of thing. And
we're gonna take you listeners through some sketches because this is something we've always kind
of want to do on the show. But our show is more long form,
sure, so it's an opportunity to talk about some short form stuff.
This was fun, by the way, I had a list that was way
too long, and Paul's like, you get five five. I had to
cut Kids in the Hall, which really bummed me out, but they're basically
perfect. Just watch Kids in the Hall? Was there a Kids in the
Hall sketch? Like? In particular, I love the Two Cafes because what
I really appreciate about the way they play women is maybe because they're I think
they're all really truly great actors, is that they understand women in a way
I feel like most other men playing women don't. Yet there's something so genuine
and loving about their portrayals. So either that or, of course Scott Thompson
Buddy Cole sketch. You know, there is something to be said for the
fact that all those guys have talked about how they grew up with terrible fathers
and their forefather figures, and like, while I did not, I understand
the sort of gravitational the sort of gravitating towards the female figure and maybe sort
of understanding them a little better. And I wonder if that's got anything to
do with it, or if I'm pulling that entirely out of my buttthole.
I believe right, because there's a generosity in spirit to the way they play
women that a lot of a lot of men don't have when they play women.
Yeah, all right, So first, the first thing we're going to
talk about is the very first Wayne's World sketch. And I want everyone listening
to know that I did not choose this one on purpose. We just decided
to do the first Wayne's World sketch. This is not a plan. This
one's on me. The very first Wayne's World Sketch aired on February eighteenth,
nineteen eighty nine, in the thirteenth episode of SNL's fourteenth season. I genuinely
tried my best to find the writers of these and I could kind of get
like good implications of who the writers were, but I don't know. So
it's like a Lennon McCartney thing. I feel like like, if someone talks
a lot in the sketch, they may have written it, and other than
that is almost impossible to tell with s and now they don't really put their
names on one thing. I like a little trivia for you. I follow
Bowen Yang on Instagram because you know, gay, and he when he's in
a sketch, he posts it and he puts all the he puts the writers
and the customers and like he does all the credits in his Instagram cat like
I just think is very cool. Okay, So the first Wayne's World sketch
features Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks, and Phil Hartman, as
well as someone on the phone at the end who I could not figure out
who that was. Leslie Nielsen hosts the episode, but I'm pretty sure it's
not Leslie Nielsen, so who knows? So Okay, So here's a little
breakdown of the sketch. We open on Aurora, Illinois, cable Access channel
ten, which by the way, is not responsible for anything expressed in the
ensuing program Solid covering your ass there cable Access channel ten, and then we
cut to Wayne Mike Myers and Garth Dana Carvey. The two sing their theme
song, they tell each other to party on, and then they get on
with their show. So their first guest is Beev. This is played by
Phil Hartman. He is in a full like teeth apparatus thing going on,
Chipmunk, Alvin Chipmunk. I don't even know how to describe ithh. Bev
owns the wishing Well convenience store and he is Garth's father, and Wayne asks
Bev why he moved the soda to the front of the store. He answers
to prevent shoplifting, and then looks at Garth. He asks Garth how Beev
is at home, and Garth says, not bad, but he should get
his teeth fixed if people stop calling him Bev. This is not high comedy
people, this is this and then he announces Wayne's top ten. Wayne's top
ten this week is the top ten things that Beev says, which are mostly
about the convenience store, and then starts to segue into like Wayne is so
awesome, right, and then ultimately the number one thing is Hi, my
name is Bev and I am a big f bomb. I was leaning in
to see if you were going to say it, Just say it. Say
you know you want to cancel me so hard. I'm on, bitch,
I know you. I know it's in there. I know it's like it's
like salt on your tongue. Nice try, motherfucker can't catch me. I'm
not getting canceled today. So b then bans Wayne from the store and walks
out, and Garth is pissed because Wayne said that about his dad Fair and
Wayne's like, hey man, everyone chill yeah. After that, Wayne introduces
their next guest, Nancy, who's played by Jan Hooks. I really enjoyed
listening, by the way, to Mike Meyer's Canadian accent sneak out through his
Midwestern accent, and then Jan Hooks for some reason, even though they're in
Illinois doing a full southern Yeah, it's like from Texas. Who knows love
it? I love chan Hooks so hard. So so Wayne asked Nancy if
she's stuffs and she says no, but she knows who does, and if
she likes Garth, and she says no, she has a boyfriend. And
what girls think of Wayne and Garth? And she says they like Garth because
he's because he's quiet, but most think that Wayne's conceded. So Wayne says
he thinks that's bogus and says he's just trying to impress Nancy because he likes
her, and even starts to sing dream Weaver to her, and then Nancy
says really, and Wayne shouts fished in and celebrates that she bought it.
Nancy says everyone thinks there are a couple of mos anyway, and stalks out
that's too that's too, it's too way. Here we go, Here we
go, number three, Here we go, Ready for number three? Here's
how this sketch is five? Okay, yep, yep. Finally, Wayne
and Garth take a phone call from a viewer who's grossed out because his girlfriend
blew chunks all over him. And I was like, okay, cool,
we're getting back to what we know. It's vomit comedy. I'm here for
this. Wayne and Garth talks talk him through it. They're like, is
your girlfriend still gonna vomit near you? Are you okay, and he's like,
no, it's fine. She's passed out in the other room. And
then Wayne says, oh, you're golden then, and you can kind of
see the like it takes a second for Garth to realize what he's saying.
Oh, and then the guy on the phone is like, oh, you're
right, party on, yeah, And then they end the sketch. What
is that about Erica that seemed to upset you? That is a rape joke?
Yeah, it is, and my beloved Wayne's World skitch that I was
not okay. So I talked a little bit off Mike about this earlier with
these with Paul and Jason. Look, I picked this one at random.
I was like, just just do the first Wayne's World sketch. I'm sure
it's fine. I love Wayne's World. I was not expecting. First of
all, I didn't know you could say the F word on TV in nineteen
eighty nine. Right he took it. I was like, I then threw
down a Google search that I wish I hadn't was the last time that word
was able to use intelligension? And then the rape joke, the yeah,
it's so mean and it's so it's not the characters as they as they evolved.
Yeah, I was really like, I'm I'm I have the least Wayne
brain here, Like I'm not into him. I don't find the sketch that
funny ever, Like even the Tom Hanks one, I'm like, it's a
bee. When that first top ten popped out and that F bomb dropped,
I like, have I gone? Am I in bizarro world? This is?
I was just like, my my deflectors weren't up, and that was
the problem. I wasn't prepared for it because I was like, this is
It's Wayne's world. I know what this is. It's it's safe. Well,
according me, I got the same feeling when it's interesting because a lot
of people compare this to Bill and Ted and they they they do sort of
originate around the same time, but Bill and Ted clearly came out first.
And I was in a show of that once, playing George Carlin's part and
watched it and did not remember they also drop the F bomb when they go
back in time, like, oh, okay, it's never addressed again.
Obviously it's not repeated in subsequent films. I don't believe it's one of those
just like, oh, that was just cool. To toss around for somebody.
It just wasn't it wasn't a word that nice guys wouldn't say. It
was just like like rape jokes were not jokes that nice guys wouldn't make.
I will say I I and this is entirely a personal thing. I do
happen to find the term mo kind of funny and I am allowed to and
do not comfort me. Mos and fruits do kind of make me laugh.
I just I just think they're funny. But what about fairies, fairies?
I'm fine with it, fairies, pretty wings, you know, like I'm
pretty open to it. I it was shocking, like and even like the
portrayals of them from what little I know of the Waiting Garth characters. Even
I was like, wow, this is a first draft. This is a
and I'm surprised it got it grew so much, Like how did he get
it back on the air, because it didn't seem like it wasn't even slam
dunk with the audience. It seemed like the audience was like, fine,
that's one hunt. Can I tell you? I interviewed him for the book,
right, and he might have said this to me too, But I
read this elsewhere that the reason the show that came back is because of the
huge audience reaction. I'm like, Mike, rewatch that, Bud. You
have rewritten it in your mind. And I get it. He's successful,
so obviously everything he's ever done has gone gone gangbusters in his head. I
get that. But yeah, it's tepid. It is tepid, and and
yeah, and again, there's also just that other shit that just doesn't need
to be there. It could be serviceable without that shit, but yeah,
it would be forgettable without it. I'm like, the joke is just these
two characters that are event fully formed, yet honestly, the funniest one in
the sketches Phil Hartman. He is my personal god. So yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. I again, like, I don't know that any
other waynes World sketches are this rough. I genuinely don't remember. I remember
the controversy when they made fun of Chelsea Clinton, which was a thing they
basically she was like thirteen years old, and they made fun of the way
she looks on the Shock, which, like, I don't know how that
made it past, Like even their own writers like, hey, maybe we
don't mock right thirteen when she's thirteen and then they kind of made up for
it, and I feel like that that slap on the wrist really changed the
trajectory of the sketch. So after we watched that one, we said,
you know, we should give SNL another shot because this is rough. So
we figured we would in a little palate cleanser here from SNL, So we're
also going to talk about Welcome to Hell. This aired on December second,
twenty seventeen, far outside of our usual purview on this show, in the
seventh episode of SNL's forty third season. It features Cecily Strong, Eighty Bryant,
Kate McKinnon, Heidi Gardner, Leslie Jones, Melissa Via Signor, and
SNL host Sir Sharonan. We open, by the way, I could just
do this one for you guys right now, memorized should I do? Okay?
Yeah, the Chorio two right okay, obviously, and now I'm just
wearing the full Sharona outfits. We're talking. Yeah, I've always wanted to
see you as a blonde. We opened with Cecily, Kate, Ady,
and Sirsia decked out in like truly the finest pop star waar and like the
idea it's a candy themed fantasy world, the ideas they're sort of infantilized versions
of women. A beat starts behind them. They address the boys in the
audience and offer condolences about how hard it's been, and there's suddenly a lot
of habitual predators out there that we're all learning about, like Kevin Spacey and
Harvey Weinstein. And then they drop this like, oh, it's like,
is this the world now? And Cicely goes, oh, this has been
the damn world. Yeah, So they sing welcome to Hell and welcoming men
to the real world that women have been dealing with forever. Right, So
we meet Heidi as a flasher who may or may not be setting a trap
for women by advertising a free cat, which is so funny. Then they
expressed that while it might be a surprise to men that all of this is
happening, women have definitely been saying there's been a fucking problem for hundreds of
years. And then we cut to like my favorite part of the sketch,
these these flashbacks to Melissa Villa Signor and she's playing a witch being burned at
the stake in sixteen hundreds, and then she's campaigning for the Right to Vote
in nineteen twenties. Then Rosie the Riveter. Then finally she's like a Paul
writes here Joan from Madmen character. But I like to think she's Mary from
the Mary Tyler Moore sharra. Oh, she's definitely Joan, though she has
the pen necklace. Ah, it's in my head. It's Mary Tyler Moore.
That would actually be even better, I think, although mad Men was
probably more in the zeitgeist at that moment, I was also on mad Men.
Just in case you have any questions we're talking about this, I was
an extra extra only by the way, honest, just a shit ton of
that show. Eric. It's an excuse to rewatch mad Men. Oh my
god, I'm gonna rewatch mad Men tonight. Tell me one thing about mad
Men. You don't have to like, just one thing. Oh okay,
I'll tell you a Bearing in mind that there have since been some stories about
the creator of the show maybe being a bit of a creep. I cannot
confirm or deny that, but I will say I walked on a set in
my full suit, and they tailor everything to you if you're even if you're
an extra. I walk on a set I'm wearing my glasses, not my
set glasses yet, which by the way, I cannot see through. And
I have to have a delightful young woman walking across the set in order to
do my job. That is literally had like a seeing eye dog seeing I
won. But I'm standing there. Matthew Winer steps into the to the set
of whatever the name of the place is called Coleman Scooper. I call it
Coleman Scooper apparently. So he walks in and he comes right here, like
right at me, and he's just looking, he's looking in there, and
then just immediately turns me and says, you're not wearing those glasses on camera,
are you? No, sir, No, sir, I have them
right here. Out of the corner of his eye. Knew I was wearing
the wrong fucking glasses for the era, and I was like, oh,
this is his show. This is clearly this man's show. That someone is
immersed in that in that era. I guess I have heard they reshot entire
like scenes. If he's like that fucking board game didn't exist yet, cut
that redo the scene and there's Game of Thrones just putting a Starbucks cup right
in the middle of the season. They needed, They needed Matthew Weiner,
possible creep on there, just a fucking apple watch in the middle of Sometimes
Meglomania works for us, you know what I'm saying, does great great art
sometimes Yeah, all right, So back to the sketch. Leslie appears and
she politely asks all these women if they realize that it's a million times worse
out there for women of color. The ladies all agree, They thank her
for bringing that up. Really wonderful for you to say that. She joins
them, and they bring the song home. They say, yes, House
of Cards is ruined, but what about this list of things that are ruined
for women? Parking and walking in uber and ponytails, bathrobes and nighttime and
drinking and hotels and vans. Nothing good happens in a van. They encourage
everyone to grab their friends, Mason their hands and get used to hell.
This sketch is amazing. I feel like Cecily Strong had a hand in this
one. Ye had a big, strong hand in this one, because she
had a tendency to write these like or to star in. I don't know
who else was writing on them with her. These like very feminist sketches on
SNL in her time there, like she really wanted to use the platform while
she had it right. Good for her. This is my favorite of those
because it's I think the funniest and like sharp. It's sharp, but it's
still funny. It doesn't it's not so sharp that I'm actually depressed after watching.
Yeah, it's not as sharp as the keys that Kate walks home and
threaded in between her fingers. Can I tell you I've done that? Yeah,
yeah, that's a real fucking thing. I think it's all real.
My favorite joke is my dad gave me a pink gun. So yeah,
there's a lot there. I am absolutely in love with Cecily Strong. There
should be. I should make no bones about it. I think she's a
fucking genius. And uh yeah, I even towards the end to on her
of her reign on that show, which she was just like, I was
a big booster of Kate McKinnon, just this whole fucking changeover where people of
color and women were actually finally getting voices on the show. Cecily Strong's voice
was just like, oh wait a minute, there's something definitely different here.
And she would just come on and do these goofy as characters who would then
just not even a sketch on news, on on update in the silly character
voice, just say exactly what was on Cecily Strong's mind at the time,
like you know, the abortion one with the clown that was heartbreaking and funny
at the same time. And I'm like, oh, oh, she just
said a real thing. I yeah, like not often are you at home
where you're like I should just sit and listen even though I'm at home and
can laugh all I want, Like I was stated me, I was just
like, oh god, she's so good, Like yeah, that shouldn't be
funny, but she made it so good. I don't know, yeah,
genius, excellent. Yeah, And this particular cadre of women on the show
just like they made so many great sketches about like being a horny as kids,
like stuff that women didn't usually get away. The world is one of
my favorite sketches. The world is, Yeah, like let's do it in
my twin bed, like excellent, excellent stuff. And like even the the
previous generation had like like they had things to say, and the show did
write more like women centric sketches for them, like when when Tina was the
head writer, like, look at my friend Tina Fey. But I feel
like this particular group of women really like took it and ran with it in
a way that like even before it never like never really got this this excellent
Well before that, they would have been, you know, just loudmouth broads
who were complaining too much that they didn't get enough. You know what I
mean. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for that's a slide turn,
Like if you d this right piece of the clot we got you.
Yes, I forgot to download my audio. I can't prove that I saw
that we get him, all right, So enough about SNL. Let's try
a new show. Let's talk about the sketch introducing Homi d Clown on in
Living Please. No, I can't. I know, I realized before I
said Homie duck clown because I'm again white banana in the tailpipe. Yes,
exactly. So. This aired on June seventeenth, nineteen ninety in the ninth
episode of In Living Colors first season. It features Damon Wayne's, Kim Coles,
Kelly Cofield Park, David Allen Greer, Tommy David sid and Takiya Crystal
Kima, whose name pronunciation I got from a appearance she made in a local
news show, and that is how they said it, and she did not
correct them, So I'm presuming that is correct. I do believe that is
correct. Yes, okay, yes, well done, Paul, Well done.
So we opened at a birthday party with four kids, Kelly, David,
Tommy, Takiya, and the host, the mom, Kim Coles,
pops in and announces that it's time for Homie D Clown. The kids are
thrilled and said it white d Homer D Clown. He believes Demetrius to Metri
clown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's actually it's actually Davidson.
Yeah. So Homie, played by the great Damon Wayans Yeah, trudges
in, immediately slaps the hat off of Tommy's head. Money won't chill out.
Takiya asks him to do a silly clown dance, but Homie says he
doesn't degrade himself. He bops her on the head and he says it's catchphrase.
I don't think so, Homie, don't play that. Even I knew
that growing up like that, that was so ubiquitous when we were kids.
They made a they made a goddamn video game out of this character. That's
how popular character was. Ok Yeah, there's a Homie to clown video game.
My god, that's okay. Uh huh. He has a similar reaction
to other suggestions from the kids, like falling on a banana peel or hitting
himself in the face of the pie. He suggests that you a magic trick.
The kids are excited, and then he's like, someone gives me a
dollar. David Helen Grier gives him one, and then Homie folds it once
twice and then pockets it and now it's gone. Yeah, he wants people
to get one thing straight. Homie might be a clown, but he doesn't
make a fool out of himself. And when they wonder why he became a
clown, he says, I guess it's because I got so much love to
give and it's part of my prison work release program. Homie announces it's cartoon
time and he uses an easel to display some truly excellent drawn panels, like
really top notch work from the art department. Out who drew those? Yeah,
it's an adventure that Homie had at Shay Whitey with a snooty matre d
that demanded Homie wear a tie and wound up with Homie literally kicking the matre
D's ass. Right, He asks the children what they've learned at ny chorus
Homie, don't play that. Then he leads the kids in the homid clown
song, which culminates in his promise to one day break his chains and fly
away, an idea of the kids can't quite echo clearly. Yeah, Waynes
breaks a little bit in the sketch, which is so fucking good, and
congratulates the kids, saying they actually made Homie smile after all. Then he
says happy birthday and trudges out, Yeah, this sketch like I remembered,
Like I couldn't remember the first Wayne's World, I remembered this one vividly.
Yeah, I have, I have the same with a lot of in living
color stuff. I realized it was stuck in my brain and didn't remember.
Is it the first time a blackjack has been used in a sketch since Vaudeville?
Because I can't imagine that anybody else. I was shocked because I was
like, what actually is that? Because it can't be a real blackjack,
right, So like what is it? And they said it was a sock
with a tennis ball in it, and I'm like, he's hitting those people
pretty hard, like a tennis ball would hurt, you think, So,
yeah, well he's hitting the hats off their heads. But I imagine there's
like a gentleman's agreement among that that whole cast that they're like, we're gonna
get a hit in the face at one point with tennis. Well, yeah,
it's worth it for the laughs. Yeah. Obviously Damon Wayne's is great,
but the four of them playing the kids are also so excellent. In
this Tommy Davidson does the cream pie thing where he he's like, oh,
hit this, hit yourself in the face of this cream pie, and Homie
kicks it and he has to hit himself in the face of the pie and
it's so it looks real, and I'm like, I know that that was
just rehearsed and he did it perfectly. And at one point Kelly asks Homie
something and he says no, and she just takes her hat off so he
can't hit off her head. Like the little like flourishes on those performances are
excellent. I wrote down that he says, I got about five more years
of this clown crap, which to me feels like that ended up being true.
He did about five years of the show. Oh yeah, then had
a career. Yeah yeah, prescient. And I read in your book that
he was charging like seventy seventy five thousand dollars a sketch, not an episode,
a sketch. By the end, I was like, holy yeah,
yeah, that's the deal you want, right, Absolutely, no one would
walk for that, like you know, the star power that came out of
in Living Color, like you know, Jamie Fox. We have two Academy
Award winners. Yeah, yeah, good well, Jennifer Lopez future Academy I
should have won for Hustlers. In my mind, Rosie Perez to absolutely.
I would also say this sketch ages very well. Yeah, I have no
complaints about the sketch. This is perfect, nothing wrong with it, and
I love it. And I'm still pissed that the Homie movie didn't come out
and they still could do it. And if you need young Homie, Damon
Wayne's junior looks exactly like exactly, like he's great, Oh no, he's
brilliant, like he's very funny. But yeah, just do the fucking movie.
I would I would pay to see that movie. Actually, amaze they
aren't because I don't know if you've heard about this, but nostalgia is big
right now. Really, Yeah, they've been really rebooting a lot of stuff.
I had never heard. What a shocker. Yeah, all right,
so we're gonna move on. We're gonna do a sketch from all that,
which we're doing for for you listeners, because this is rough. It's not
it age is fine, but oh boy, it's okay. I went through
a lot of because the first one off, I'm like Good Burger, that's
like the big thing. I went through a lot of Good Burger sketches.
I'm sorry. This is the absolutely, this is the this is the the
Citizen Kane. The rest are horrible. You heard it, You heard it,
listeners. This is this is the Oscar winning one. So I cannot,
for the life of me figure out when this aired, so I'm just
gonna say it's aired in the late nineties. It features Kel Mitchell, Keenan
Thompson, Danny Tamborelli, Amanda Bynes, and Laurie Beth Denberg. We open
with Ed played by kel Mitchell, being challenged to drink a turbo good gulp
in under ten seconds he does nine seconds in actually and then belchies really loudly.
Yeah, did we mention this sketches for children? We should mention that
right here, I will say, right now, I have four nephews and
zero children of my own. But I have four nephews, and from the
ages of eight to like eleven, this would have killed sure like anything pee
poop butts jenital like that was the height of comedy. So I get it
right, like I get why this is doing what it's doing. So Amanda
binds young, young, sweet like eight year old Amanda bindss in she was
horrible, and she asks for a good burger. Only Ed is already feeling
the pressure from the drink that he's had. He needs to tank all.
He keeps yelling the word tank all the entire sketch. Unfortunately, the bathroom
is out of water. He'll have to wait until the plumber gets there that
afternoon. This is definitely a health code violation and absolutely an ocean issui is
too. He returns to Amanda and asks if he can go home with her
to use her bathroom. She very rightly says no and leaves recurring character I
found out from watching all of these. Connie Muldoon shows up played by Laurie
Beth Denberg Girl. She asks for a larger cup to transfer her her medium
drink into because she likes to drink her medium drink from a large cup.
Provides it for her and has to suffer as she slowly pours her soda from
one cup to the other, and he collapses yelping. I really liked that
bit. I'm going to say that actually genuinely made me laugh. I agree,
that was exactly what I wrote. That was my favorite part, her
pouring it. She had real comic timing when she did that. Yeah.
So Perry the plumber played by Keenan Thompson arrives ed is thrilled. He asks
Barry to go fix the bathroom, but Perry corrects him. It's Perry with
a pee like plumber and he's carrying a plunger, which also starts with the
pee pee pee pee. My nephews would have wet themselves at this point.
It would have been everyone needs to go change their diapers, like and they
can't handle this. Okay, here's my journey with this. I went through
a lot of shitty sketches found this one was like fine, we'll do this
one. Then I watched it again started I was like, Okay, that's
really funny. Watched the third time, really does get funny, and Keenan
Thompson going peepee, get it, get it. I was like, fuck,
I'm laughing. Yeah. So the sketch ends when a dissatisfied customer calls
ed over, angry that he has Nichols on his burger. When it's like
you ask for Nichols, the customer starts yelling, I ask for pickles with
a pee, and like the two of them do this physical comedy thing that
I really like. He goes pee pickles, pee pee, and they both
start to just sink down to the ground, one because he's so angry and
the other one because he's so defeated. Ed can't take it anymore. He
kool aid man's his way through the wall of Good Burger to probably relieve himself
on someone's car. Yeah, I'm hoping, I watch out fire hydrants.
This one works the best of all the Good Burger sketches because it just escalates
really really well. It's like it's well written. This is the other show
I wish I'd have been able to do a chapter on I couldn't get enough
people from it, really, yeah, and I say enough. Danny Tamborelli
was a great friggin' interview. It's a delightful and he gave me so much.
I'm hoping for like a second edition. Maybe I can do in all
that chapter because it's not my age. But I know that there are people
just shy of me who are like that was my life. So I feel
like, you know, I feel like it deserves a chapter because yeah,
it was also partially written by the kids. It's fucking nuts that like kids
were writing alongside you know, adults. It's very strange. I have a
I have an actor question Connie Muldoon. I want to know where she got
that accent. I feel like there's a whisper of the Fjords in it,
like like I and it's like it's consistent and it's funny. So I don't
care, Like godspeed, good job Lori Beth den Bergh. But I'm like,
what is this voice coming out of this I don't know, thirteen year
old person, Like it's wild. But when you're a kid, though,
that is a thing you can channel better than when you're an adult. Like
I learned to do accents, and I learned to do like impressions and stuff
when I was a kid, and I feel like that is a thing you
can do as a kid that you can't do as well as an adult unless
you've got the free time and a speech therapist to walk through it. I
wonder if it's it's the same part of your brain that learns the languages,
which it is so much easier when you're a hit, right. I think
it's a layer of like humility that you don't have sure, like a layer
of like don't give a fuckness that you as an adult you're like, I'm
embarrassing myself, and it just you can't do it anymore. Also, I
want to mention real quick, we picked this one obviously because for the fans
of the show, but also like I wanted something that represented Keenan Thompson is
probably the most prolific sketch comedy performer oh at this point of our generation,
right, I don't think you're getting around it. He's done what twenty years
of SNL almost and all that. I think he's literally done more sketch TV
than anybody in history, quite possible. And John Cleese at this point,
like yeah, Like it's incredible. He started on all that when he was
so young. He's a baby, and there's so many sketches where he's just
so he's great. This the writing obviously isn't like what we're used to,
and it's not strong and it's not meant for us anyway, but he's there
is an undeniable charm to this kid that I'm like, oh, okay,
I get it. I get like how you've how you've managed to sustain this
decade's long career. It's also interesting because he's almost himself like like like when
he walked in his I'm like he's entering just like he would enter an SNL
sketch like that. He has some there's some bone in his body that like
gets this genre very well. He's not a chameleon at all. He's never
ever not been Keenan Thompson in literally any sketch, and he had he mostly
laughs through them too. Yeah, I know, and that's normally the thing
I fucking hate. I also like at the time he I think he might
be a cup I don't know what his age is. We're roughly the same
age he and I. Yeah, and like he like other people I know
of my age had a heavy and it still shows Jim Carrey influence, there's
no getting around it. And like, I feel like he learned a lot
of comedy shortcuts by watching Jim Carrey who didn't and but then ran with it
in a way that made it his own. But yeah, I'm not sure
why. I'm not annoyed that he's a laugher, that he's a breaker.
I don't. I feel the same way Jimmy Fallon doesn't, and I want
to kill him. But but Keenan does it, and I'm like, it's
He's just got a natural charisma to him. There's no getting around it.
Yeah. I tried to get him for the book, but that was that
was that was what I felt like. If I don't get Keenan, I
don't know that I can finish the all that chapter, you know, And
he's he's a hard get to be fair. I mean, I would think
kel would probably be a easier get, maybe with with love and respect to
every sure, all right, So from all that to the State, So
I'm just going to stay right away. I have always kind of wanted to
watch the State because I've heard so many stories about it and Eric has talked
about it. She sent me a sketch called Porky Pine Race, which is
hilarious Porkyman Racetrack and I and I've realized in the course of this that all
of the State is currently on Paramount plus. Yeah, so I I will
be partaking of more of this. So we are going to talk about a
sketch from the State called Dan, the very popular openly gay high school student.
This air on February fourth, nineteen ninety five, in the fifth episode
of the State's third season. It features Thomas Lennon, Kerry Kenny, Joe
Litrulio, Michael Showalter, Ken Marino, Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black,
and the rest of the State. We open in the men's room with Dan
played by Thomas Lennon, not Kevin Allison, who I fully remembered playing this
role in this sketch, so that's on me. He's gazing appreciatively at Joe
Litrulio's ass. Who who is it? I mean, sure, it's right
there. Joe's immediately like offended. He's like, whoa are you? Are
you looking at my ass? And then he goes he's wondering if Dan is
a fairy and Dan calmly says, why, yes, yes I am,
although I prefer the term gay. He thought everyone knew that. And then
Joe apologizes immediately his whole tenor changes and he's like, I'm so sorry.
I'm new here. I didn't know that, and he admits that the attention
is making him blush. He's like, oh my gosh, now now I'm
embarrassed. Then the title card comes up Dan the very popular and openly gay
high school student, as Dan spikes the camera with a knowing glance. So
we see Dan arriving at school and a pack of athletes led by Ken Marino.
My crush on Ken Marino. Oh, I started the first day I
saw him and has only increased over the years. I love Ken Marino.
He also has a milk mustache. This entire sketch for no reason. That
is that's the state right there. Yes, it's the attention to detail.
So Ken asks him mockingly if he had fun at the gay bars last night,
and Dan cheerly says, yeah, I sure did. I even got
laid. I met a man and I had sex with him, and the
athletes congratulate him on his score and like, look this it's going to go
very absurdist, like, this is not the first felony that would be committed
in this sketch if it was real. It's not real. It's fine,
don't worry about it. Yeah, we're gonna let go of that stuff.
Okay. The coach who's whose hat says coach on it, so we know
exactly who he is, played by Kevin Allison, calls him over and he's
like, hey, kid, come here. He has a bunch of dresses
in his hand. He's like, he's like, my wife's getting rid of
these dresses. Do you want them? And Dan very happily explains, no,
sir, I'm not a transvestite. I'm just gay, and this coach
goes, oh, okay, then never mind, and then he high fives
him. We got to the lunch room. Dan is surrounded by all the
other students who admire him, so Michael asks him to prom. Even though
Michael himself is not gay, he's just dying to go to the prom with
Dan. Dan has to turn him down. He already has a date for
the prom. In fact, it's Vice principal Morgan played by Michael Showalter,
who Kelly played by carry Kenny moans he's a hunk of Saurus Rex and if
carry Kenny deserved an oscar for that line reading it is perfect. It is
the most perfect line that has ever been read in the history of cinema and
television. It's so funny. Dan and Morgan do some eskimo kisses and all
the kids go ooh around them. Yeah, we're gonna ignore that. We're
gonna ignore the adult and child thing here. We cut to the prom where
Dan and Morgan are dancing. Dan excuses himself to go to the bathroom just
as the coach takes the stage to announce that the prom King and Queen are
surprise Dan and Morgan. He says, and he's like the prom King and
Queen Dan and vice principal Morgan. Morgan takes the stage and he's like,
Hey, has anyone seen Dan. Suddenly the curtain is pulled back and we
see Dan making out with Kelly. Everyone is shocked. Dan comes clean.
He doesn't like having sex with men. Gasp. He told everyone he was
gay because he thought it would make him popular, and it did. He's
so sorry. Morgan is enraged. He gives him a week of detention and
stalks off Joe yells from the crowd, does this mean that you don't like
my ass? And Dan says, no, Joe's got a great ass.
Everyone should appreciate each other for what they are. And he says, now
I've got a girl to kiss, and he kisses Kelly, and the crowd
booze and turns on him and starts throwing everything at them as they kiss,
and that's the end of the sketch. Okay, well you picked this one.
I did pick this one because I, first of all, you said,
like, we're gonna blow past the adult thing, which we are largely,
But I do think it actually is there for a reason, because the
whole purpose of the sketch is like, flip it around and he comes out
as gay and everyone booze. Right, So if we're gonna make him coming
out as straight and we're gonna show like everyone booing him and how ridiculous it
is that anyone even cares about this, this is dumb, right, So
I almost feel like having him dating the vice principle. When I first heard
it, I was like, wait, what it's like. But people get
away with that. I mean, it's it's generally frowned upon, but like
but like much older men or women date much younger men or women, and
as long as a heterosexual pairing, it's kind of fine. And like,
there are lots of stories about people that like get away with this shit,
right, So I look, I'm not saying it's a one to one comparison,
and but I think they're trying to push the OBSS as far as they
can on the one side, you know what I mean. Oh well,
yeah, they're definitely pushing the assertism. I don't know that people get away
with it. I think Mary Kayla Turno would have some some issues with that
one. Yeah, that's it. They just they ratchet up the absurdism and
it gets it just gets funnier and funnier as it goes on. Yeah,
when we first discussed the state, my first thought, because we wanted to
talk about like, we wanted to have some gay themes, and I was
like, well, how about we do the jew the Italian and the Red
Hair Day, which is classic? But then Paul found this sketch and just
the title of it alone, he was like, we gotta do this que
well, and I would I would guess I'm only guessing, but you know,
anytime anybody asks Dave Foley about kids in the hall. Nobody was ever
surprised that they had a gay one because they thought they were all gay,
they assumed. And I think I'm guessing Tom Lennon gets that a lot,
and I do find it. I think it's fascinating that he's He's the perfect
choice, mostly because Kevin Alison wanted to play something hyper macho and just yet
just twist it all at its head, which I love. Two amazing lines
from this. At one point, while Dan is walking down the hall,
you hear just someone in the background go, He's like a homosexual Fonzie.
Yeah. And then at the end at the prom and when when Morgan goes,
does anyone know where Dan is? Someone shouts, I know he's not
in the closet like borshed Belty stupid shit, which is so funny. This.
I love this sketch. No notes. I think overall the state probably
ages pretty well. I haven't seen the show as a whole in a while.
I've seen like one off sketches. You've probably seen it more recently.
As far as like the stuff from from our childhood? Does it age better
than most? Nothing is perfect? I know there's no way it's gonna be
me. No, it does. The only the only thing that's problematic,
and it is I can't really say to what level it is. Is it?
There was one sketch in which Joe Litrulio plays in Puerto Rican. He
doesn't they don't darken him up, he doesn't do a crazy accent, but
he is supposed to. He is supposed to be in this sketch Puerto Rican.
There's not much more to it than that. And it, again,
like many of their sketches, is just like about identifying race, race,
race, race, like they're playing some game with it. Again, I
can't justify it. But that's the worst of the state. It is one
of the lesser offenders of it is maybe the least of all of them.
Yeah, I couldn't remember anything. I mean, it's a bummer. There's
only one woman out of eleven people. That's a bummer. And funny is
the sketch that came on right after this one in the episode was about how
like a day in the life of Carrie Kenny and how she cooks for them
all and washes all their clothes and put tucks them all into bed. Well,
then they write all the sketches, which is just very funny. Yeah,
I feel like they're fairly well evolved. All right. So the final
sketch we're going to talk about is from The Tracy Ullman Show. It is
called Francesca's First Job. It aired on October eleventh, nineteen eighty seven,
in the third episode of The Tracy Ullmond Show second season. It features Tracy
Allman, Dan Castelenetta, Sam McMurray, and Jacob Vargas of Romey and Michell's
high school reunion. I just want to point that out. Oh my god,
that's where I know him from. Yeah, Ramo, ramon. Yes.
I was like, he looks familiar in this blurry YouTube video that I'm
watching. That person look familiar. We open on Francesca played by Tracy Ullman,
being dropped off for her first day at work at Viva Taco by her
two dads, David played by castin Aletta I cannot pronounce his name, and
William played by McMurray. Her dads are not so sure about her working there,
and she's like, no, I need a job. I need to
learn responsibility and be an adult, and so she shows them away. David
asks her for a kiss goodbye, and she initially refuses, but then she
runs up and gives him a peck on the cheek. It's really sweet these
very lived in characters. Already, this is a little different from everything else
we've covered. This is almost like a short play what we're about to watch.
So Francesca reports for duty to mister Ortega played by Jacob Vargas. We
should note right now, Jacob Vargas is like sixteen. He's like two years
older than the character Tracy Allman is playing basically uh huh. He gives her
a uniform to change into. She heads to the bathroom she changes. She's
intent on being the best Francesca that she can be. She even makes sure
to obey the sign that employees must wash their hands, going to the nth
degree to make certain that her hands are clean. When she leaves that bathroom,
she walks out like a surgeon with her hands up. Yeah, like
she's ready to go to surgery. Tracy Omens acting ability is so incredible in
this. It's a downding. Yeah. So we cut to Francesca training on
the job with mister Vargas. She cracks the very simple how to make a
taco code It's like, if you see a picture of lettuce, yeah,
add lettuce. If you see a cow, add beef. She makes no
friends with the other employees, who think she's like a smarty pants no it
all show off. Mister Vargas needs someone to fill in it the cash register,
and Francesca gets chosen since she can add solid. He trains her on
upselling to clients at the register, which sets off Francesca's internal capitalism alarms.
Francesca, if you haven't realized yet, is a bit of a proto social
justice warrior figure in this yeah, in this show. But she's her objections
and she gets ready for her first customer. A kid, an adorable child
no more than like five, comes over and is like, can I have
a taco? My mom says I was allowed to order one all by myself,
And Francesca can't bring herself to upsell as she was trained, and mister
Vargas is like, ask her. She wants extras, and he steps in
and he gets all that sweet, sweet cash from that little girl. He
takes the money that she was going to use to buy a get well card
for Grandma to upsell her on larger soda Francesca tells him that was awful to
watch him do that, and he snaps that that's why he makes forty cents
an hour more than her, and if she doesn't shape up, he'll see
to it that she never works in this town. Again, escalates very quickly.
It threatens her hard. Yeah. A few hours later, David and
William reappear and admire Francesca at work. Mister Vargas immediately clocks them as gay
and calls them munietkas, which I had never that's dolls, right, Erica.
I never heard that as a as a slur for gay people in Spanas.
It's a very gentle one. I'm guessing they didn't want to say anything
more intense on time. Yeah. Yeah, Francesca won't stand for that,
and she tells him that since Spanish is not one of her three languages that
she speaks, she sincerely hopes that whatever he just said meant those are the
two finest people who ever walked in here. And then she says I'm taking
my break and stalks away. She sits down with her dad's and she says
she wants to quit, and David tells her, look, it's easy to
quit, but you have to follow through on things, because follow through is
important, and she says she took the job because she wanted to learn about
the real world, and in a few short hours she learned that it's cold
and cruel and dirty and filled with people who hate you and are mean to
you just because you're different. And David goes, okay, you can quit,
and then they stand up to leave, and William says she picked up
a lot in one shift. That's the end of the sky. Excellent turn.
I love the turn. This all right, I'll start Sam McMurray as
a Miami vice queen is probably borderline but funny. I'm willing to let it
completely go. Yeah, he's the one that's very like flamboyantly getting right.
Yeah, David is the less Yeah. Well, this is how you do
open minded sketch comedy about homosexuals. One is incredibly flamboyant and the other one
is not. You know that one is well and one is just that's how
you do it. I also think I watched I really loved this sketch,
and I watched a couple more Francesca's and there there's one specifically where he gets
a lot deeper characterization and in that the the let's say, indicating towards homosexuality.
Sam McMurray is doing completely stopped bothering me. And I'm like, all
right, fine, if you're going to do that with this, and this
is because there look, there are there are a couple of swishy gays out
there. I don't know, I don't know if it's going to shock anybody,
but we do exist, you know. And fine, Tracy Oemen's an
interesting one, right, it's almost not sketch comedy. It's almost short theater
pieces. There's a lot that are like that that are frankly not that funny.
This one at least has like good solid jokes in it. The other
some of the other Francesca ones even I'm like, well, that was a
beautiful scene, but it wasn't necessarily funny. They didn't have like a but
a bump at the end the way this one does. And then we should
also talk about the fact that this sketch I think ages particularly well for Tracy
Almonds sketch. She made an entire career out of doing basically every ethnicity on
her show. Here's what I'll say about that doesn't age well. But and
I could be remembering it more like with rose colored glasses. But I do
feel like she often came from a place of character study and a bit of
generosity towards the characters. But does that age well. So it's difficult to
find Tracy Allmand's sketches that actually do age well. Every time I've seen her
interviewed about it, it's very like she exists in this other dimension where she
can't understand why that might be offensive. Is not that people throw it in
her face. There's this weird thing, right, she doesn't really seem to
get any consequences for this. But yeah, it's very much the sort of
like exactly you said, it's all character study, and therefore she doesn't see
what's wrong with this. Yeah, it's I'm also part of me is like,
this is not an excuse me? Like, is it is it an
English sensibility that we're missing? Yes, that's like it's because she's she's English.
She's like, but this is what we do, This is this is
the community. This is acting. Yeah, this is yeah, this is
not offensive. How could it be offensive? I'm acting, I'm in brown
face playing a Pakistani cab driver. How is that offensive? She did that
like twenty five times. That character. That character was all and even in
like the late nineties, like all the way, this wasn't just in the
eighties. She had that HBO show that ran for like in the nineties,
and she just kept doing these characters that were just like Latin American men,
and yeah, it was it was incredible that You're right, she kind of
got away with it. No one really thinks about Tracy omen and negatively you
used the term lived in though, and that is like there's no doubt,
like these are fully fleshed out, fucked up characters that she's doing, Like
they are very fleshed out. She's thought them through, she's probably studied the
accent. She's done all the work, only to not realize she shouldn't be
doing it. It's like it's outside of all that, like it's a ton
of like great work and admirable work. If only if only it had been
some other character she had decided to put all that work too well, because
she so lived in Francesco, like it's a fourteen year old girl, sure,
and like I started laughing so hard when she confronts mister Vargas or mister
Ortega excuse me about like him upselling to the girl. She goes, that
was a truly awful thing to see. You practically picked that little girl's pocket.
You have no sense of on her like and it's completely straight faced,
like it's a fourteen year old being confronted with an injustice and approaching it like
a child would completely and it's she's so good the way she walks, she
keeps like skipping and like it's just it's really impressive acting work. It's also
the era she started right the eighties, you can get away with it,
and then she kind of was almost like grandfathered in into the nineties, and
then she tried to relaunch this show. Now it wouldn't't it wouldn't fly.
Frankly, it's very old timey comedy, even in nineteen eighty seven. This
is two years away from that Wayne's World sketch, which obviously doesn't age wrote
well either, But from like Kids in the Hall, like we discussed earlier,
it's not that lot far away from the State in Living Color. It
feels very like nineteen sixties. She didn't want to be a comedic actress,
and I mean I mentioned that in the book, but like she didn't.
That wasn't her thing, and so these were I think that's why they became
character studies. And like James L. Brooks was going to let her have
whatever the hell she wanted, So we'll give you whatever you show, whatever
show you want. I interviewed some of the writers on the show who were
very much like, yeah, it wasn't my style, but it turned out
it was easy to write, like you know, I did it. So
I got on the show and then moved on to The Simpsons and that's where
the rest of my career came from. Yeah. I debated whether or not
to even include this in the book because it's just it's weird. It's a
weird one and like I think, if I were to teach sketch in a
college right now, I would be like, here are several years of Tracey
Yellman's show. Can you make a sketch out of any of these? Because
can you turn this into three minutes of something workable? And not to say
they're not funny, because this one was actually genuinely funny and heartfelt, very
sweet, but their plays there are scenes within them. They're like scene cuts,
I feel like in a lot of them, So it's just like,
it's not a sketch strictly. I would like to see what somebody could do
if they tightened one of these up, see what they become. I think
I'm glad, I'm really glad you included her though, because frankly, there
aren't that many women in the early and like in the timeline that you're working
in right like now, it's not so much the case, but in the
timeline you're working in, which is the eighties and nineties, mostly the nineties,
look at the state like prime example, ten men and one woman.
She's a brilliant woman, but just it's not there just aren't that many women
in comedy and so like. Not only was she a woman in comedy,
was she was a force and she had her own show. Yeah, and
she kind of like forced America to watch like one act place. I admire
that. I admire that. Yeah, this is almost like old timing.
Roxy like FDR would have watched this sketch, would have listened to this sketch
on the radio. If I have a balanced book, it would honestly be
about the last ten years, because the last ten years, obviously shit's changed,
and I would be able to write about a black Lady sketch show and
like, yeah, which is great. It's so fucking good. I am
so pissed that it didn't get picked up. I'm very upset about that because
it's a very good show. While we're shouting out lady sketch shows, I
want to talk about Baron Espons. Oh yeah, please Canadians, more Canadians.
That's the other thing. Your book is about how basically we are Canada.
Huh, like Canada has taken over our culture. I didn't realize that.
I guess a hockey stick. Now. That was another book I thought
about writing, was like just that exact theme, but I'm like it came
out in this book anyway. So yeah, our sense of humor is essentially
a Canadian sense of humor because of who we've been listening to for the past
thirty years. All right, well, Jason, that's our show. Thank
you so much for coming on. Thank you. Please tell everyone again.
What is the name of the book that they're gonna go by. They're gonna
go pre order it right now from the local bookstore. It is called We're
Not Worthy. I can't remember the subtitle of my own book, but it's
at sketchcomedybook dot com, and that's where you can. You could there's info
on there, including some pre order links. Pre order it however you want.
But apparently pre order's help is what I'm told. I know nothing about
the actual business end of this, but go ahead pre order. That'd be
nice. Pre order it, enjoy it. So once again, what's what's
that link again? Sketch comedy sketchcomedybook dot com. All right, listeners,
thank you so much. We hope you enjoyed this bonus episode. Erica and
I are going to see you on Monday or perhaps Friday. If you're a
Patreon listener, we have a Patreon. Go to the patreon join our patreon.
Thank you so much. Jason, I'm gonna go watch every episode of
mad Men now and look at you. Thank you. All right, listeners,
thank you so much. We're so glad you got what am I saying?
All right, listeners, we I started talking without an end of the
sentence. That's okay. Just just barrel through, just keep just keep punching.
You can do it. Improv you can do this, yes, and
yourself. You're better at improv than me. I like a script