#326. 'Downey Wrote That'
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This week's main topic is the Peacock documentary Downey Wrote That, chronicling SNL's legendary writer Jim Downey, and all three hosts came away charmed: Sonny calls it "the perfect length," praising how it lays out Downey's history and comic theory (a problem that doesn't exist, over-explained) via the Change Bank sketch, the Norm Macdonald/OJ Simpson "cause he killed her" era of Weekend Update, his scene-stealing cameo in Billy Madison, and small roles in There Will Be Blood and One Battle After Another; JVL admits he's simply never found Letterman, Conan, or Norm personally funny even while marveling at Downey's craftsmanship; and Mike defends the Conan/Letterman ethos as deliberate absurdist time-wasting and digs into how the doc traces Downey's several distinct eras at the show, from Bill Murray-era cast member through the Carvey/Hartman rebuilding years to the political-sketch period anchored by the classic Gore/Bush debate sketch. Before getting to the doc, the episode opens with an extended banter block: Sonny recounts a disastrous Friday that began with an elderly Tesla driver deliberately backing into his car in a Dallas mall garage, spiraled into driving to the wrong Boy Scout camp with his crying son, a mid-trip flat tire fixed for free by a saintly Pottsboro, Texas tire shop, a dead coffee-machine battery, and a torrential overnight rainstorm; Mike describes a two-hour, six-block DC gridlock nightmare caused by road closures for an IMF/World Bank meeting and Zelensky's motorcade shutting down the Key Bridge; and JVL delivers a horrified inventory of the disgusting contents unearthed while changing his son G-Money's bunk-bed sheets, including a hammer "for intruders," fourteen mismatched dirty socks, and dental floss used as an air freshener. They also touch briefly on a grim box-office weekend (Black Phone 2 opening at number one, Tron: Ares cratering, After the Hunt limping in at number nine) before returning to the documentary, which wraps with speculation about who might succeed Lorne Michaels and general skepticism that the show survives his eventual departure.
From the show notes
Before the documentary: Sonny's gettin' upset!
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00We've been in this business a long time. With our experience, we're gonna have ideas for change combinations that probably haven't occurred to you. If you have a $50 bill, we can give you 50 singles. We can give you 49 singles and 10 dimes. We can give you 25 twos. Come talk to us. We are not gonna give you change that you don't want. If you come to us with a $100 bill, we're not gonna give you 2,000 nickels, unless that meets your particular change needs. We will give you the change equal to the amount of money that you want change for.
Mike00:00:45Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me are my two co-hosts who provide dudes chatting and movie analysis equal to the amount of dudes chatting and movie analysis. That you want provided. It's what they do. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family if they want to listen to this show, they've got to do it at Sub-Beacon.com. Join the conversation in the comments at Sub-Beacon.com. New episodes every Friday morning. And don't forget to check us out on Instagram at Sub-Beacon. We are going to be talking about Downy Wrote That. Later on in the show. But first, Sonny, what is happening in your world?
Sonny00:01:35I, you know, I had a I had a weird and bad weekend last weekend. I had a weird, weird, weird and bad weekend. So it all started. It all started at the North Park Mall in Dallas, Texas, as it often does. As I was. I had I had I had gone to. I had gone to do. Oh, I seen a movie. I seen a movie. And as I was as I was leaving the. What did I see? I saw the new Luca Guadagnino movie after the hunt, which is kind of a me too ish movie about me. It's basically it's basically a very it's a very provocative movie about the whole me too thing that is kind of tweaking people with. References to Woody Allen. Anyway, I don't want to talk about I had no need to talk about that here.
Mike00:02:30You're kicking off this weekend on a lighthearted note is what you're trying to say.
Sonny00:02:33Kicking off this. Well, it is a lighthearted movie, though, because it's kind of making fun of a lot of the response to me to anyway. So I'm leaving. I'm leaving the I'm leaving the the. The mall, I'm leaving the parking garage, the parking structure, and it's it's. It's one of these things where there's like you can only go left and right. And like if you go left, it's kind of a pain in the ass because there's always, you know, traffic coming and whatever. So I usually go right. It's a little bit easier to get get get out that way. I mean, I'm behind a guy who who like is just stopped. He stopped. He's not he's not moving. And he's there for like a minute. And he's there for, you know, another another 30 seconds or so. And I like. And there there have been cars coming, but there's been plenty of times to get out. You know, there's and I I thinking maybe he's on his phone or something. I like tap my or, you know, sure. Just friendly. Just like not not not a heavy one. I didn't lay on it. Yeah, it wasn't. I was just like the Russell Crowe movie, right?
JVL00:03:40Like when he when he explains there's a difference between the friendly tap of the horn, he was laying on your horn.
Sonny00:03:47He was right. Absolutely right. He was absolutely right to be to be like killed his wife.
Mike00:03:52Not yet. Oh, I think later. I think I think it was before.
Sonny00:03:56Well, whatever. It doesn't it doesn't. I don't remember. Well, he kills a lot of people. That's true. So, I mean, there were he clearly had other things going on beside the horn. He wasn't wrong about horn etiquette, but he wasn't. He was not wrong about the horn etiquette. You got a man's got to have a horn code. And so he so I did the tag just to do. And the the guys like brake lights flash. And then I start getting closer to his car. And I thought I had accidentally taken off my foot off the brake and was like creeping forward, you know. So I like slam on. I like slam on my brake. And I had my brake all the way down. My my car was not going into you. Is he sliding down a hill? Are you on an incline? He was very slowly creeping down the hill. Not reverse. He wasn't in reverse. His reverse lights were not on. What I think has happened. What I what I have what I come to realize in the like again, it's like it's like a Monty Python. It's like the it's like a fish called Wanda, the slow motion steamroller. Yeah, that's like it's it takes place over like 30 seconds. And there's this huge expanse of and I realize in like the 15 seconds I have to kind of process this in my head. Oh, he's rolling backwards. How's he doing? Is he in neutral? He must be a neutral. He must have put the car in neutral and is now very slowly rolling backwards. And so I put my car in reverse to try and back up. But there's somebody behind me. And again, his car is creeping down. Is he doing this on purpose to you? A tenth, a tenth of a mile an hour. And sure enough, bumps right in to my bump. He did this on purpose, didn't he? And I'm just like and so about. With like five seconds left to go, I'm laying on the horn. I'm like, I've gone. It's no longer the the quick, you know, beep, beep. It's like, huh? What are you doing? Right. What do you do? Bump bumps into the car. Now, again, this happens at literally a tenth of a mile an hour. Like there's no it's like it's like rolling in it, not even rolling into a wall. It's like the bumpers are kissing. It's the bumpers have had to have a little smooch and this. Guy like open in his fucking Tesla opens his door and he gets out. And it's an eighty five year old man in a in a button down striped Oxford shirt. Looks like he stepped off the fucking Mayflower and he is like, what did you do, man? You just you just you just ran right into my car on purpose. And I and I'm like standing out of my car at this point. I'm like, what are you talking about? You just rolled back. You rolled like five feet back into me. He's like, no, no, no. That was you, you. And he's got this half a fucking smile on his face. He he has done this on purpose and he has done this before. He has. This is a thing this man has done before. I can tell. I can tell it in his eyes that this is a thing he has. Question. Question. Tesla data collection.
JVL00:07:10I well, so this is this is what I say.
Sonny00:07:12I say your cameras will do it. Your cameras will show what you have done. Don't you? Don't you? You don't you know the car that you're driving? And he's like, no, you came right up into me. And and I like look around and thank God there was a woman who was right next to me who leans out her window and says, no, dude, you rolled right back into him. We all saw it happen. Boom. And I'm just like, see, you see you. And so he he is now at this point, the smile disappears off his face and he realizes he's fucked. He's really he realizes he is caught in this in this situation. And he's like, oh, well, oh, I'm so sorry. Let me let's look. Is your car OK? I'm like, yeah, my car's fine. I like went and looked. I was like, it's it's fine.
Mike00:07:57But he was getting ready. Would you do the riot act? Why would you do this?
Sonny00:08:01What does he get? Oh, I didn't. I certainly did not mean to do this. This was a and I'm just like, I don't I don't say this out loud.
JVL00:08:09I'm just like, isn't that grounds to shoot him? I. It's like cattle rustling. I would say.
Sonny00:08:17If I if I had, I probably would have gone to prison if I shot him, but it would have been justified. It would have been justified. Do you think you'd really go to prison in Texas?
Mike00:08:25The Texas judge would have said, I don't like to send you to prison because I like your style.
Sonny00:08:30I don't know. It was probably he's probably he's probably again. The way this guy is dressed, he he thinks he runs this fucking town. That's what anyway. So so anyway, I was just like, no, it's fine. Just get in your fucking car and drive away. He's like, watch your language. Watch you. How dare you? And I'm like, get in your fucking car and drive it the fuck forward this time. You son of a bitch. It's the day I turn to the lady. I was like, thank you for backing me up on this and got back in my car. And this guy, the guy looks at me and gets in his car. He drives away. And I like this is so this is this is the start of this is the start of my Friday afternoon.
JVL00:09:08We're eight minutes into this. We recorded him and made that fucker famous.
Sonny00:09:11If I had not if I had not had to do what I did next, what I had to do next, I would have I would have called the fucking cops. I would have called the cops and been like, I want his I want his Tesla data. I want I want all the camera in telemetry information off that fucking vehicle.
JVL00:09:28And I am going to sue you on general principles or the driving version of keystroke monitoring. Yes, they know everything that happens and you don't own the data. Tesla does know in terms of service.
Sonny00:09:40One hundred one hundred percent. So anyway, but but I had but I had a thing I had to do. I had to go get my son and we had to go to Boy Scouts camp. It's Boy Scouts camp weekend. Always fun at the Boy Scouts camp. So I had already packed everything up. Everything was ready to go. It was actually in my car already. I was literally going to I was going to get him at the house. We're going to go to the we're going to go to the the camp site and I get home and I check in. I get home and I change real quick. I change into, you know, camping gear and I'm like, all right, let's go. Let's go. We're going. We got to go. Got to go. And of course, I'm like I'm I'm like full of adrenaline for the whole drive home. I'm like I'm like fucking hype. And I, you know, my fight. I'm like a flight guy in a fighter in most fighter fighter flight situations. But this time I was very much like I will I will go to the anyway. So I'm like I'm like kind of less gross.
JVL00:10:38And very, very, very simple.
Sonny00:10:43So anyway, I get home, I get I get my son, get everybody in the car. I'm like, all right, let me I'm gonna look up the I'm gonna look up the address for the camp one more time. Pull it up on my email and and type it in. I'm like, all right, we're off. We go and we're driving. You know, we hit regular kind of rush hour traffic, whatever. It's not it's not that bad. Takes about an hour, 45 minutes to get to the camp, which is basically due east of of where not quite do is a little southeast. But like basically due east of where where I live. We get there and pull up to the camp gate. Again, not that bad as our forty five or so. Get to the camp gate and pull up and the the guy at the gates like, oh, hey, who are you here for? I'm like, oh, I'm here for a pack pack, a 90. We're doing, you know, came out and he looks at me like, what the fuck are you talking about? And he pulls out a sheet and there's no 890 at this camp in Athens, Texas this weekend. I went to the wrong Boy Scouts camp because what happened because I wasn't paying attention because I was so boy, I was so fucking hyped on. Yeah, I just pulled it up. I pulled it up on what happened was I realized this. I reconstructed it later because I was able to recreate it on my phone. I just searched back eight ninety camp out and it pulled up last year's email, which is on the same weekend. The dates all match except for twenty twenty four instead of twenty twenty five. And went to last year's campsite. And of course, at this point, my son is crying because he wants to play with his friends. And we are and I'm like, oh, God. And if I if I did not have a very solemn responsibility, which is that I was bringing the battery generator that is going to run the coffee machine in the morning, I would have gone home and I would have been like, we're plug on this thing.
JVL00:12:28I would have.
Sonny00:12:29I 100 percent would have. But I was like, I got it. It's not just for us at this point. We got to get out of here. We got to get out of here.
JVL00:12:35Son, I'm afraid the weekend's been canceled. Coyotes ate your entire troop. They're all dead. Jimmy, they're all dead. So we can't go. I'm so sorry.
Sonny00:12:45We're lucky we weren't there. So so now I have to drive this. This other campsite that I was supposed to go to is due north of my house. So it's basically I have to go.
Mike00:12:55You make a nice little arc.
Sonny00:12:56Oh, there there there is a path you can take that would that you can like basically connect like the hypotenuse of a triangle. Right. It's all it's all back roads. It's not it's not it's not fast. So instead, I got a double back the way I came. I just went back the way I came doing 90 the whole way. I was like, all right, we're getting we're getting there. We're getting there. We're going to get there on time because you got to get there before. I think it was eight p.m. Because the gate shut at eight p.m. And I don't have the code to get in. So I'm anyway. We got there at seven fifty nine. We got there at seven.
Mike00:13:32And it turns out the guy running the gate. Was old man in the Tesla.
Sonny00:13:36Old man Tesla. No, no, it wasn't him. Thankfully. So anyway, we get there. We get there and I set up the tent in the dark. And I will say, you know, last year we talked about my trip to R.E.I. Buying the gear for the tent.
JVL00:13:49And I will say. Half Dome two. Half Dome four.
Sonny00:13:52No, it's the trail something. The trail. I'll look it up in a second. But it's but it's a two. It's a two person tent. It is a two person tent. It's a it's a it's small. It's small. But it. It literally takes like ten minutes to set up. And I was able to do it.
JVL00:14:07It's the R.E.I.
Sonny00:14:08brand.
JVL00:14:09What's that? The R.E.I. brand.
Sonny00:14:12Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're good. I was able to set it up in the dark in like ten minutes. Again, like it's it's pretty idiot proof. If I can do it in ten minutes, it's a it's a it's an idiot proof tent. And I get everything out and I unload the car and whatever. The sun runs around. And of course, it's like 80 degrees and it's miserable that first night in the tent. It's like hot and there's no there's no air.
JVL00:14:33Whatever. I wake up the next morning to move the car. You're not supposed to have the cars next to the campsite. You know, you got to go to the you got there's a parking lot where you got to move everything
Sonny00:14:42to. So I've pulled everything out. I pulled the I pulled the battery out. I take my friend. I'm like, here, here's coffee. Make the coffee. I get in my car and I drive it to the parking lot. And as I'm driving it, I get a tire pressure monitor light because I have a nail in my tire. So I get to the I get to the lot. I look at it. I'm like, oh, yeah, sure enough. There's the bucket. There's a nail. There's a nail in my tire. So I change. I change the tire by myself lot.
JVL00:15:10Or is this a gravel like dirt? Oh, it's gravel.
Sonny00:15:14It's gravel.
JVL00:15:15It's nothing jacking up on gravel is scary jacking up on gravel.
Sonny00:15:20I cleared out a little. I cleared out a little level space, so it wasn't on rocks. I was very careful. I was. I mean, it's not like I was ever under the I was never under the vehicle. I would not have gotten under the vehicle, frankly. But but it was. But it was. It was fine. I was. I was. I jacked it up. I got. I got. Again, it's the Kia. Remember, we've already done this. We've I've already told the story about changing the tire. So I get the tire down. Change out. Put it there. And and I, I get it. I get it all on. And I I walk back to the campsite. I walk because, you know, you're supposed to walk. And all as I'm going, I'm Googling, OK, where can I go get this tire patch? Because you got to get patched on Saturday. No tire shops are open on a Sunday. No tire shops would ever be open on a Sunday. That's an insane thing. So I have to. Who gets a flat tire on a Sunday?
Mike00:16:04Come on.
Sonny00:16:05So I so I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to have to do this today because I'm not driving down seventy five with a fucking donut on my car. That's a that's a that's a good way to die. So I find a place and I'm like, I'm walking back to the campsite and I get there and they're like, dude, you're you're you're coffee battery died after one run through the thing. And I was like, what? I was like, I didn't realize that we can turn into falling down. He had brought he brought like a two thousand watt coffee machine. It sucks through the power. It sucks through the power in like thirty minutes. And I was like, well, OK, well, I don't know what to tell you, man. I didn't realize that I was going to have to bring an entire solar panel bank to power this thing while you were doing the coffee. OK, I have a question.
JVL00:16:48Does your your dad's don't understand that the whole purpose of Starbucks via is for camping? I don't know what that is. Remember when Starbucks did instant coffee? Yeah, sure. So that's the use case for Starbucks. Instant coffee is outdoorsy shit. And that's the only nobody would actually choose to drink that. No, because what it is is it's micro ground beans that you just add to water. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:17:16It's instant coffee. Good.
JVL00:17:18No, but it's not like Sankra. That's the thing. It's actually quite good. I mean, for instant coffee, it's quite good. But so in the future, I'll recommend this.
Sonny00:17:26I'll recommend. So anyway, I get there. I get there and everybody's pissed off at me because the fucking the fucking coffee machine's dead. I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. I just brought the battery. I got to go.
JVL00:17:37Just back down into them.
Sonny00:17:39I got to go get my tire changed. Oh, yeah. I got to go get my tire changed because I have a flat. So I go I go to the I go to the local tire shops 15 minutes from the camp and the guys there were incredibly nice. They listen to all my shit and they change the tire and they pulled they pulled a thing out of my car that was like, no joke. Six inches like a railroad spike. I frankly I frankly don't know how they patched it because it came out and it was as big as the tire. So and they did it for free. And this is if you're ever in Pottsboro, Texas, and you need to get your tire changed. Warrior Tires is the place to go. My friends, they good, good people there did did a very nice job. They they they patched me up for free. They did. I got to write them a nice Google review or something. Which I've never given a shout out on this podcast.
Mike00:18:28That's a given a lot of money.
Sonny00:18:30If one of the 1200 people listening to this happens to be in Pottsboro, Texas, it needs a needs a tire change. Get back to I get back to the campsite and everything after this is better. Everything after this is better, including the torrential downpour. The torrential downpour that started the minute I got back. Just just pouring. How many days a year do you actually get rain in Pottsboro, Texas.
JVL00:18:54How many days a year do you actually get rain in Pottsboro, Texas. How many days a year do you actually get rain in Pottsboro, Texas.
Sonny00:18:57We it has not rained in a month. It is straight up not rained in a month.
JVL00:19:01It was waiting for you to be camping.
Sonny00:19:03It was 100 percent. Anyway, it has not rained in a month and it rained probably three inches. And you know what? And I will say I will say again, the R.E.I. two person tents that I own did an amazing job. It did not get wet at all.
JVL00:19:19Did not get on the bottom with the tape scenes. Really? It works.
Sonny00:19:24It just it kept every was dry on the bottom. It was dry on the weekend.
JVL00:19:28You didn't like to say, hey, buddy, we're getting the fuck out of here.
Sonny00:19:32We stayed. We stayed. I wasn't going anywhere. I'm not quitting. I'm not a quitter. So anyway, but after this, after this, everything was actually better. It was like it was a nice it was a nice little it was a nice little trip after this. But man, it was that no joke. Like one of the most annoying 18 hours of my entire life. Just just as you said, falling down levels of one fucking thing after the other. And I was like, I was so I every everybody was like giving me the look of walking around the campsite like this guy. You might lose it. You might lose it.
Mike00:20:10But I want to eat lunch. I want to have my weekend.
Sonny00:20:13How are you guys? How are you?
Mike00:20:15So I'm going to hijack this a little bit only to say just because I feel like what I have to say is a little bit. Similar to Sonny's. But but at no way is it it's like it's like following the headliner with like the opening act here. But just only to say that my weekend last weekend also started off terribly because I was leaving my office in downtown DC and and left early enough that I was not going to hit the worst of of of rush hour traffic. Home is going to get in my car. I had a source to talk to. So I called this source as soon as I pull out of the garage and I'm like, I'm going to have this phone call. And by the time I get home, the call will be done. I will have accomplished one more thing on this Friday afternoon and then I'll be able to take my son to baseball practice and the weekend shall begin. And instead, what it what it kicked off was no joke. One hour and 15 minutes. One hour and 59 59 minutes from leaving the garage where my car was parked, pulling into my driveway at home. And I live like on a bad day, on a bad day, an hour from my office. This took me all basically two hours for and complaining about traffic does feel sort of like the lowest common denominator of podcast talk. Like in and especially DC, right? Like JVL, you I've always said.
JVL00:21:53Virginia is the worst. Right.
Mike00:21:55But this was, but this was not Northern Virginia related at all. Once I was in Northern Virginia, it was all, it was, uh, it was all wide open in DC. This was DC gridlock.
JVL00:22:04You know, we had somebody in our slack who just like text. Did you see this Sonny? Like, I'm sure it was the same day. You're talking about the same thing. Like, uh, sent a Google maps image with the, all the streets, you know, everything like blood deep red. Oh yeah. And, uh, it was just like, shit, something's happening in DC. And it was just like the whole system just seized up.
Mike00:22:25It was multiple things happening, uh, which I found out. One of them I found out as I was going home, uh, I was, you couldn't, you couldn't escape, uh, the, the explanation for it. Um, they had canceled and I don't want to like bore people with like DC geography here, but essentially they had closed off multiple ways of getting from. Um, from like downtown the K street area, uh, to like constitution Avenue, right? Like that area sort of west of the white house, which is kind of the way in which a lot of people get to a thoroughfare to get over the river, to get to Northern Virginia had closed off all of those roads because the IMF and the world bank were having their annual meeting. Hmm. Um, and so the roads were closed. So, so I'm going my normal way. All of a sudden I can see all the, everybody is, is, is jammed up and at Pennsylvania Avenue, the main, the main thoroughfare and through that corridor, the, the cross streets going down the constitution to just closed. They're just closed. And, and you know what? There are police officers just standing there.
Sonny00:23:40Sure.
Mike00:23:41Not directing traffic. Nobody's directed traffic. Here's the funny thing about DC. What people don't understand is there's about 90 million different police forces in the DC area. Right? Like there are every time I think I know all of them, I will like see a police cruiser with a different police force that I hadn't heard of before. Right? Like the us bureau of engraving has its own guys. Oh, the real hard asses too. Um, but so like the problem you would think with all these police, like somebody is going to go, Hey guys, wait a second. It's four o'clock on a Friday. We've closed all these streets for very good reasons. So that, you know, all of these people from, uh, you know, from the, uh, the, the, the bank of Romania and, you know, first national bank of Mozambique can like all walk around casually while, while like 90,000 cars are like stuck in gridlock.
Sonny00:24:41Nobody like the Willard. Is that where, no, no.
Mike00:24:44It's like literally the world bank and the IMF. No.
JVL00:24:47On the other side of the white house.
Sonny00:24:48Yeah. On the west side, on the west side.
Mike00:24:50And like, no, you will be surprised to find out that no, no police force said, you know what, we should, we should maybe get somebody out there to like point people in the right direction where to go. So it's like, so once you get to Pennsylvania, it's like that chaos where like, well, I guess I'm, I could turn left and try to hit 17th down by the white house and hit that way. Um, or I could go right and go up toward Georgetown and kind of, all right. Like damned. If you do damned, if you don't like nobody is going anywhere, Pennsylvania avenue becomes
JVL00:25:24all seized up. You're better off heading into Georgetown, taking the key bridge across.
Mike00:25:29Oh, that's a great idea. JVL. How, how, how thoughtful, how astute here's the problem. Vladimir Zelensky is in town and staying in Georgetown case is shut down. The key bridge is closed. The key bridges close. Oh Jesus Christ. So again, I, I've, I've gotten, I did what I said, Wisconsin avenue north to Chevy chase.
JVL00:25:52You get onto 4 95 and you go all the way around JVL.
Sonny00:25:57You just go back to your office and have a drink. That's what you do. Honestly. No, I, I'm not even, I'm not even joking. If this was me, this is me. I'm just, I'm, I'm like, I'm parking my car in a garage and I'm walking back to the office and I'm just like, I'm not coming home tonight.
Mike00:26:11Oh no. It was, it was an hour and a half and I had gone six, six total blocks. It was a disaster. It was.
JVL00:26:17And then of course, once, once I got over the Memorial bridge, it was, yeah, I like that for a deep cut, very deep, very deep.
Mike00:26:28But like to, I would have had to just abandon the car on the street because literally was, we were not moving at all. There was nowhere to go, like to go on Wisconsin and get on the, you know, it's like that would have required, you know, some open road. But anyway. So it was a disaster. Uh, the rest of the weekend was fine. So, so I don't have that much to complain about. The other reason I had to hijack this and go first before JVL here is, uh, not this coming weekend, but the following weekend, I've got scout camp, uh, family camp out. Um, so I'll not only be taking two of my boys, but I'll be taking my oldest best friend as well. So, um, it'll be, it'll be an adventure and, uh, I have. So I will remember to triple check the location because there are also two, we have also two locations to do this. Uh, gotta make sure I'm going to the right one. Uh, so that, uh, is that a JVL, anything, anything from you?
JVL00:27:25I won't take a lot of time, but I will share something, you know, we all need to smile. Uh, so little boys are disgusting, right? In fact, uh, so G money who is nine now, he shares a room with flash. Um, between the two of them, it's an utter horror show. G money has, oh God, the smell, um, G money has the top bunk and it's a, it's a large bed. These are full size bunk beds, not, uh, not twin size and, uh, G money doesn't like he's, he's got a whole world up in that bed with him. It's it's not even like a, it's like an airy, you know, it's just, and I, uh, I had to, I had to change the sheets on his bed because I, I could not tell you the last time his sheets had been changed because the reason is because there's so much shit up there. The changing the sheets on his bed becomes like an hour long process and the, the sheets had become so horrible that they had disintegrated and simply just like ripped right down the bed. So we, we go up and we unload everything, we put new sheets on the bed and I inventoried what I found. You guys, you guys ready?
Mike00:28:43You're going to read it? Yeah.
JVL00:28:45I'm strapped in. Now this is mind you, I, I am not counting pillows and blankets and stuffed animals, right? Those, those things are just the auntie. You just assume, well of course he has four pillows and a gaming chair. Why wouldn't he have a gaming chair in his bed? In the bed? Yeah. A gaming chair? Makes sense.
Sonny00:29:06Yeah.
JVL00:29:07Uh. Like with haptics? No, no. But like the, the kind of like, you know, it's got a. Cube chair. Yeah. Like it's got a back and a thing you sit on and he has, unimportant. It's a gaming chair. Okay. Here's what we have. Two Rubik's cubes. Mm-hmm. 15 band-aids. Used? Used? Two things of gauze. No, no, no. These are new. New. Okay. Uh, four six-sided dice. Two things of LED string lights.
Sonny00:29:36Yeah.
JVL00:29:37A one inch diameter ball made of.
Sonny00:29:38Were they plugged in?
JVL00:29:40Uh, these, these are led lights are, are battery, um, battery operated. And so you lay have a charging pack. You plug them into, um, a one inch diameter ball that is made of some kind of dried hard paper product. And I went to throw it away and he was like, no dad, dad, I've been working on that thing for a year. You gotta lick. Cause I'm gonna keep growing it. What, what kind of paper product was in? Was it tissues? Was it paper? Was it macrame? I don't know. Not gonna, not gonna worry too hard about it.
Mike00:30:09Saliva hardened.
JVL00:30:10Uh, five reading lights, five of them, one hammer, not a, not a play hammer. There's an actual hammer. I said, buddy, why do you have this in here? And he looked at me and he said, for intruders, like old boy, 14 dirty socks, uh, not, not seven pairs, just 14 random dirty socks, different socks, four water bottles, one flashlight
Sonny00:30:40question. Sorry. Uh, do you mean like, you mean like Dasani water bottles or whatever, or like, or like
JVL00:30:46the metal, you know, reusable ones, those, those one flashlight, two of the very large Gatorade protein bars, one of which was wrapped. One of which was half eaten, of course, one container of dental floss. I said, buddy, why do you have dental floss up here? And he goes, oh, it's like an air freshener because it's so minty. So, you know, you could just like pop the top on it open and everything smells like mint. I said, oh, okay. He's gonna thrive at college.
Sonny00:31:17That's actually, I honestly, that, that's, that's, that's a life hack.
JVL00:31:20I gotta remember that one, two lanterns like sizable lanterns, uh, and 18 books. That's that's what he had at his bed.
Sonny00:31:32That sounds about right.
JVL00:31:33Everything he needs. Fantastic. And he was like, I don't understand like imagine if there was a flood, he'd be fine for days. Anyway, little boys and, uh, when he came down for bed last night, uh, to say good night to me, he had, uh, in, in red ink drawn this, this jagged scar from the top of his hairline all the way down the side of his face. And uh, and he also had a lightning bolt on his forehead. I said, what did you do? And he said, oh, flash helped me into, I did the Harry Potter scar and the Anakin scar.
Sonny00:32:10Just like Jackson dart.
JVL00:32:12I said, okay, buddy, good night. Pleasant dreams. Sleep tight, bud. They're little boys. Boys.
Sonny00:32:19That's how I say that is the most. Yeah. I'm feeling you.
Mike00:32:22I'm vibing with you.
Sonny00:32:23JVL on that one. This is my, my daughter's bed is exactly like this. I don't think this is necessarily a gender dependent, but I will say that when I was, when I was a kid, I would, when I read a book and I finished the book, I would just toss it on the end of my bed and I, and eventually my parents would like get fed up. And they, because my bookshelf would be empty. Yeah. And there would be, there would be 70 books at the end, just 70 paperbacks.
JVL00:32:46Four of them are months overdue with the library. I'm sure. Sure. Right. In addition to things that are just yours.
Mike00:32:53By the way, my, my favorite is the, the book that we can't find for months and months and months. And finally the library's like, like the next time she goes to the library, it's like, just, just pay it. You know? And then, and then like the minute you pay the next, the next day, yep. It's like right there at the foot of the boat. It's not bad. It's like, of course. Yeah.
JVL00:33:13Anyway, that's all it was. It was great. Thank you. It was a journey of discovery.
Mike00:33:17All right. Uh, thank you. Well, let's, let's do very quickly talk about box office. It's not been, it's, it's another bad weekend at the box office, right? Number one at the box office black phone two, uh, at $27 million in its opening weekend followed by Tron Aries, uh, absolutely abysmal drop for Tron Aries.
Sonny00:33:40Uh, 60 dropped six, six, six. Yeah. It's funny.
JVL00:33:45This will all talk about horror. We have one fewer movie studio, right?
Sonny00:33:49Yeah.
JVL00:33:50Uh, that'll fix what's wrong with Hollywood. Once we cut the number of movies coming out.
Sonny00:33:55Yeah. Well, they'll have good movies. It'll only, they'll get rid of all the bad movies and it will only be good movies from, from here on, uh, no, uh, black phone, slightly over-performed Tron dropped like a rock. Nobody went to go see good fortune, which was, uh, the new comedy movie with Keanu Reeves and Aziz Ansari. Nobody's really gone to see roof man. Uh, the, the whole thing, everything's, uh, everything's a disaster, uh, at the box office right now. Um, after the hunt came in at nine, came in at number nine at the box. So how about that? Uh, no, it's, it's all bad. Um, it's not going to get very much better here in the next, uh, few weeks to the extent that like Netflix is putting, uh, K-pop demon hunters back in theaters again.
Mike00:34:40Uh, for Halloween, why not got to pump those numbers up.
Sonny00:34:44And uh, I think there was another, there's another movie that's getting rereleased on Halloween. I mean, it's just, it's, it's terrible. It's, it's a real mess. I, to the extent that like my kids had a half day today, cause why wouldn't you just have a half day on a random day in October teachers need to do their school planning or whatever. Uh, and I was gonna, I was like, all right, well maybe we'll go see a movie. And I looked at, there's literally nothing I could take them to nothing I could take them to. We're not Gabby's dollhouse movies, barely in theaters anymore. Anyway. Uh, it's bad. It's bad. Um, but no, the, the, uh, do we want to do a two minutes on Warner brothers?
Mike00:35:21And cause I like, no, no, no, nobody have, okay, all right, well that's okay. So yeah, move on. Cause we have so much to talk about with this one hour documentary that we're, uh, that we're talking about this week, uh, Downey wrote that, uh, Sonny Bunch. Do you want to give us a review of, uh, this peacock documentary?
Sonny00:35:44Well, I was going to say, I went to, I want to explain to people, we were, we were talking about doing the Scorsese documentary that's on Apple TV plus that's getting really good. A lot of buzz about that. People seem to really like it, but it's five hours long and like we didn't, it's five, five, one hour episodes, I think, and we didn't, we didn't have time to do that. So we can, we, we did this instead. Maybe we'll do the Scorsese doc next week. I don't know. Um, uh, or at the very least we could each tackle an episode and then, you know, um, uh, Downey wrote that down, down, he wrote that, uh, it, so peacock has really been milking this whole SNL 50 thing. Like this, they have, they are even after they're just doing documentaries about everybody at this point, uh, including, uh, Jim Downey, who was, uh, who is a, probably the most famous and most beloved of the SNL writers. I mean, you can like Al Franken is more of an actor, I think, on the show than a writer, even though he started as a writer. Um, if you're, if you were thinking about just pure SNL writers, it's, it's probably him and Jack Handy and, uh, Michael and Robert, those are, those are like the Troika of writers, writers, qua writers who, who people think of, um, like even Tina Fey, who became very much beloved, uh, weekend update anchor. She started as a writer and she was, she was head writer for a while. Um, you know, people know her for her Sarah Palin. Um, anyway, uh, so Downey wrote that is Danny wrote. That is great. It's the perfect length. That's an hour long. Um, and you, you can't go wrong and it, and it does a good job of, it does a good job of laying out both the history of the show and his importance to it. And also why he is funny. And Downey says early on in the documentary, like I didn't really want to do this because there's nothing that makes people want to kill themselves more than listening to a writer talk about writing. And that's true. And 100%, there's nothing, there's nothing on earth that's more boring than that. But this, this, this I think works because they have enough of the skits that he wrote to, um, to, to kind of bolster it. And his theory of writing is like deceptively simple, um, which is, he, he explains it one way in the documentary, um, which is, uh, it's like a two part, it's a two part plan. I forgot to write it down. I meant to write it down, but it's basically a problem that doesn't exist. Overexplained. Yup.
Mike00:38:12Is the, is a solution that doesn't make sense to a problem that doesn't exist and then overexplaining
Sonny00:38:19it. Yeah. And, and that, and that is, and if you, if you look at a lot of the things he is, he is credited with it, it, it, it like that explains it perfectly. Like the best one in the, in the documentary is the change bank, which I had forgotten about.
JVL00:38:34And it's just, it's just, it's a perfect, I remember that live, I remember seeing that thing live. Being on the floor.
Sonny00:38:42It's a perfect, it's a perfect joke because the it's, it's a, it's a problem that doesn't exist. A bank that only makes change over explained where you have Jim Downey himself is the, is like the head cashier. And he's like, you come in with a 20, we'll give you two tens. You don't want two tens. We can give you one 10 and two fives, or we can give you one 10 and 10 ones, or we can give you two fives. And, and it's just like that. And then he's like, but we will never give you 2000 nickels or whatever, whatever the
Mike00:39:14unless that meets the change needs of which you, because that's what you want.
Sonny00:39:20And I know it's just, it's just a, it's a perfect gag, but it, Norm Macdonald explained it slightly differently. Um, when he was, uh, when he, he wrote about working with Jim Downey in his, uh, his kind of pseudo memoir, his fictionalized based on a true story. And there is a, there's there. The whole thing is great. If you've never read Norm Macdonald's book, you have to read Norm Macdonald's book. Um, and I wish Norm Macdonald were still alive to have, to, to be there, to talk about Jim Downey on this. Um, uh, but the, uh, but the, but, but the way he describes it here, um, is this, uh, the joke should be stripped of any cleverness play on words or innuendo joke should never elicit applause. A joke should catch people by surprise. It should never pander applause as voluntary, but laughter is involuntary. Um, and, uh, you, the, the long and the short of it is the joke, the setup, the setup and the punchline should be the same is, is what it comes down to. The setup and the punchline should be the same. The, the setup, the, the, the end of the joke should be so obvious, frankly, by the time that you have finished it, that it. You shouldn't, you should almost not even need to say it. And this is why, this is why OJ Simpson ironically was such a good foil for Norm, Norm McDonald and Jim Downey, because during the OJ Simpson trial, any joke about the OJ Simpson trial ended with, cause he killed her. Right. Cause that, cause he did.
Mike00:40:59And, and the setup and the punchline are the same, which is that it's absurd that this is even a question, right?
Sonny00:41:06That we're even having this conversation. Um, so the, and, and of course. Of course, this ends up, uh, Norm, Norm and Downey both end up getting fired from SNL because Don Allmire is friends with OJ. It's, there's a funny moment in the documentary where they're like, everyone thinks they know the true story about what happened with Jim and Norm, but they don't. And then it's like, oh no, it's actually, it's actually exactly what everybody thought, which almost made me think it was a, a, like a Jim Downey joke. Right. Like I almost thought, I almost thought it was, I, it's cause every, everybody knows what happened. They made too many jokes about OJ. Simpson and Don Allmire fired them. Um, and that is, uh, that's, that's precisely what happened. Anyway, the whole thing is great. Jim Downey is underappreciated as a comic actor. He, they, they talk about his appearance in Billy Madison where he delivers the, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard speech, which he wrote himself and, and, and Adam Sandler's like, yeah, he came in for one day and wrote the, the only thing in the movie that everybody remembers. Um, so thanks. Thanks Jim. Uh, uh, and he. He, he is in, he's been in several, he's been in two now, Paul Thomas Anderson movies. He, uh, was in, uh, there will be blood. He has a small part. Um, but he is also, uh, he has, he has a small part in, um, the new one, one battle after another as well, where he plays the, he plays a member of essentially a KKK like organization, um, that worship Santa Claus. It's, it's very funny. It's, it's a, again, one, one almost imagines Downey himself, um, came up with the, the set up there. Uh, he's very funny. He's very funny. Uh, the thing I, I had not known, I had not known he was Letterman's head writer for a couple of years. I did not, I was, yeah, I was not, I was not aware of that. So I learned, I learned that here. Um, and you can see, you can see how annoyed Letterman is that he left after that year and a half. Like it's, he has not, he is not forgiven. I don't think David Letterman strikes me as a grudge holder. He's a, he's a.
Mike00:43:10He's a guy who holds a grudge, but, but he also, I mean, but there's a respect level that, that, you know, that Letterman has for him, right? Like I think Letterman holds the grudge because he understands how key down he was to like the tone of the show, which he describes.
Sonny00:43:27He's mad because he's mad because his show got worse or at least it wasn't as funny. Like he's, he's a very funny guy. Anyway, I don't know. I, I, I really enjoy it again. It's, it's, it's a very short documentary. You, you, uh, will likely learn. And it's just very pleasant to watch. And it is kind of like the Jim can, or the John Candy thing that we talked about last week, where it's like, nice to hear people just say nice things about a guy for an hour and a half who everybody respects. Like, that's a, that's a, that's a fun thing. Um, that's a fine thing. And also Conan O'Brien shows up again. And it's funny.
Mike00:44:01It's like Conan is just in everything now. It's it's, I'm not complaining, but JVL, what did you make of down? I wrote that.
JVL00:44:08So, uh, I, I, I mean, this is, we, the three of us discussed this. I was very confused because I had thought that Jim Downey was a 2020 anchor. Michael informed me that that's, that was actually Hugh Downs. Hugh Downs. And then I realized that I also was confusing them with the, the Washington post editor.
Sonny00:44:33What was James C.
JVL00:44:35Downey, James C. Downey. These are three names, which I have heard over and over and over. Over the course of 25 years. And in my mind, they were all the same person. Uh, so it was all new to me. And, uh, I have to say, I found it a little bit puzzling and lovely worth seeing worth watching. Um, but puzzling because so much, so, so much of what Downey did is phenomenally funny. Uh, the Will Ferrell sketch. About, uh, you know, helping to train your dog by what, what is this? Your dog, your dog, right? Um, the change bank, the, the colon blow. I mean, there's just the rat poison, um, pet chow, pet chow, rat poison, right? Uh, and yet a bunch of the, so I have never found Letterman funny. I have never found Conan funny. And Sonny, you're not going to like this and I'm sorry. I know that you've never found normal. No, it's not that I didn't find him funny. Norm is funny, but I always, to me in the, if I was going to rank weekend updates, I would put norm like above average, but not a lot above average. Like I, you know, better than when it. Was Kevin Nealon. Well, yeah. Um, but like not as good as Che and Colin Jost, probably not as good as Tina Fay when she was really cooking.
Mike00:46:21Oh, no, no, no, no. Sorry.
JVL00:46:23Go ahead. Sorry.
Mike00:46:24Not don't mean to yuck your yum.
Sonny00:46:25Well, no, this is so I, I just to back JBL up here. This is not an uncommon feeling. I do think norm is very much an acquired taste and they say this in the documentary, which was, I think Lauren, Michael says this in the documentary, which is that like, well, all Meyer actually. They had the critics on his side. So we could, we really couldn't stand up for them.
JVL00:46:44I'm I am not, again, I am not saying the norm is bad. It was, it was good, but so what was interesting to me is that the, I understand how Letterman is revered. It just never worked for me. This is, I'm not saying that it's wrong that the, I do not say that the letter, maybe it's just because I have always been a morning person. I have never been a late night person in any part of my life. And so. Any attempt to stay up past 1130 for me was always do like, you know, nothing good happens after 1130 for me. It's always very, very hard for me to, you know, and so when I would be up and I would see Letterman, this thing that like everybody talked about when I was in high school, oh, Letterman, I just feel like, what, what is funny about this? Same thing with Conan O'Brien. And what is interesting to me is that in, in this documentary, they talk about the Norm Macdonald collaboration as the absolute high point of Downey's powers. And like that, that is the, the professional relationship was the most productive, the most fruitful. And I absolutely trust the word of all these comedy people. I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not saying my judgment on this is right. I'm saying for me, that's like the least interesting stuff he did. And, uh, I, I am much more interested in all of the early jokes. And then in the period when he was a head writer, where he seems to have been the joke doctor for the Adam Sandler's in David Spades of the world. And I mean, there's a long, there's a long section of it about how with that class of guys, like he wrote the Chippendales, like the Chris Farley Chippendale sketch, right? Um, those guys would have ideas that weren't quite working and they would just wait in the hallway outside of Downey's office to get time with him and he'd fix it. And like the Dana Carson. Carvey, uh, George HW Bush, like not gonna do it is, is a Downeyism like it isn't, that isn't a Dana Carvey. Like that wasn't his interpretation. Like Downey was down to the syllable in instructing people how to read the jokes because he knew where the funny was like, that to me is very fun. The Will Ferrell, uh, he was doing all the Will Ferrell, George W. Bush stuff, right? Strategery, right? Which, you know, we, we forget that. But the first deployment of Strategery is in the Gore debate where they're asked to sum up their candidacy in one word and Will Ferrell is just like, Strategery, it's great. And that stuff to me is much funnier than like the Norm OJ stuff, uh, or anything that happens ever on David Leonard. The thing they show about the world, the world's largest vase, which is a thing they show, which I guess must be a thing. That people who like Letterman like, but that I just sat there staring and I was like, I don't understand why this is funny. It's absurd. It's a waste of time. It is wildly uneconomical. Like it's just, it's shaggy in way. Like you just see like, just fill in time, fill in time, fill in time.
Sonny00:49:59The change of the guard. Yeah.
JVL00:50:02That's hilarious. So, but again, for me, it doesn't work. But also what's funny about it is it's. And this is interesting about downing. So he talks about how he lasted 40 years at Saturday live because he really had like four different jobs and four different errors. It sounded like he was not the head writer for 40 years. He was like a junior writer for a while. Then he was a head writer for a while. Then he just did the political stuff. Then he just did week and update. Um, and it is interesting to me that Downey seems to have worked so well, both in comedy that is incredibly precise and tight. Like the sketch comedy he's doing, uh, like with Norm Macdonald. I mean, those jokes on weekend update, some which are very funny, but like they're really economical and tight in there. And yet he's also working in the same vein as these shaggy, absurdist meandering jokes on Letterman. And I found that interesting, even though they don't work for me. But what I, I mean, all of this is really, I just want to hear Michael dilate on this stuff because you know a lot more about comedy than I do. Can you guys explain? Explain to me why Conan and Letterman are funny. Um, both. Okay. Where to begin?
Mike00:51:15So Letterman and Conan are, they are, they, the reason that they are funny is they are deliberately wasting the time and resources that they have been given by these, by this, in this case, one August kind of television network, right? Like that was. That was the premise of, of letterman of early letterman in particular. I like he, he, he really lost it in like the last 20 years, but like early letterman, you go back and watch, it's like, can you believe they're putting this on TV? Can you believe they're let? And I think there's part of it's kind of a, a cockeyed Midwest sensibility. I think that that comes right. Like a letterman's from Indiana down. He's from, from Chicago. Um, so I do think there's kind of a, um, we, we present straight laced, but we were kind of like, we're kind of fucking with it all and where they're finding the humor and that Conan's a little different. Conan's a little more cerebral and, um, and also is like a super comedy fan himself. And, um, it sort of has, and I, I think this has really come through in his podcast. He sort of has cultivated, which is interesting. Conan's podcast shows up in this, in this, uh, in this documentary very, very briefly because Jim Downey was on it a few years ago and made one of the most epic jokes of the podcast era, I think. on the jeffrey epstein this conan brings up jeffrey epstein and uh and uh about his his you know arrest and death and downey's joke is that he he this is the first time he's hearing anything about about what happened about the new york financier jeff epstein he goes the new york financier you know wait he killed no no he's like no no no no no no no i would have heard i would have heard about that i would have nice try conan no no he didn't he didn't kill himself um the whole thing is is great so so that's so i can't explain what do you think sonny i i want
Sonny00:53:21to ask mike do you think conan was in on that or do you think uh downey just sprung it on him live
Mike00:53:27in the in the in the show 100 downey sprung that on him live because you can tell when conan's in on a bit and having watched that interview when it came out uh conan is not in on conan is like conan is like because he is one of those people who would line up outside of downey's office when he was a writer at saturday night live like conan is like i can't believe i get to it's he's like he's like back as a young harvard grad like writing for snl like listening to downey make whatever he thought of like 10 times funnier um so i don't know like i can't i can't really explain why conan and and letterman are funny he's
Sonny00:54:07sonny do you have a well i i i was never a letterman guy myself but i i i have always i mean i i like i think letterman is funny and like but it was he was i but i was very much a conan guy um from not just the show but you know the you know he wrote some of the best simpsons episodes episodes yeah um and i i think it comes to i think it's much more simple uh than than what mike was getting at and it's the it's just the absurdism it's just the yes like it's it's it is just the like the the mouth the mouth thing that conan would do you know the like overlaid yeah and uh you know in the year 2000 it's just it's he just did these he did these ridiculous things um and they were funny because they were ridiculous like that is and he looks ridiculous and he's and he looks and he does and his his whole performing style the whole like you know
JVL00:55:06kind of dancing around on the on the stage is his his his presentation for me is nails on chalkboard yeah like i see his face and i want him to go away i guess which isn't to say he's not funny again this is a again this is a me problem and not a like i totally agree with some of the simpson stuff like you know as a writer conan may be really really great as a performer it just doesn't work for me but again minority view well well let me let me talk about this documentary a little bit it's not it's not a minority view
Sonny00:55:39though is the thing it is not like a lot of people the reason conan got fired from the tonight show once he finally got it was because people didn't like him yeah like he he was he's he is a niche taste he always worked better in the late night spot he works better uh as a podcaster than he did on that tbs late night show he did for years and years like i he just is he's uh he's he's an acquired taste and i don't trying to make him johnny
Mike00:56:04carson or jay leno was always a mistake totally um but okay but on on this documentary so i jvl you mentioned it but i i it was what struck me and and i thought the actual documentary did a good job as far as these things go again this is not like the john canney thing it's not a work it's not a work of high documentary art but they did a very good job i think of demonstrating the effect demonstrating what people always say which what lauren michaels says which is basically boss after lauren michaels the most important person in saturday night live history is jim downing and the way they demonstrate that is right he comes in in year two 1976 with bill murray with bill murray and um bill murray is also with his time it's a lot of crossover between between this nctv yeah yeah yeah but also that john candy one yeah um and uh and so he's there in that early period he actually ends up he's brought he's he's added to the cast in that last terrible year of the original era the 79 80 era where like belushi and akroyd had left it was just it was just the ladies and garrett morris and bill murray and so they added like peter akroyd who was who was on the writing staff um and they added jim downey and franken and davis and even paul schaefer was like in the in the cast um in that period it's like a terrible year um harry shearer's like great anyway um and then he leaves right he goes to letterman he does lauren michaels is terrible the new show then he comes back and it's interesting he comes back to saturday night live when lauren michaels comes back um that year right and it's not the year where everything goes off to the races with phil hartman dana carvey uh you know jan hooks era it's the year before that when he starts um and you can really i mean they don't they don't go into this but like he's a huge part of that rebuilding it was a rebuilding year you only had um john lovitz and nora dunn and dennis miller um kind of come from that uh into the into the next full era come from that season and then he's there for 10 years as the as the head writer and i mean there's like there should be a documentary like this on robert smigel because everybody agrees that robert smigel is the absolute when it comes to sketch writing the specific art of sketch writing everybody agrees that robert smigel is is the goat he's the best um nobody nobody's even close um conan has said that bob odenkirk has said that i'm sure i believe jim downey would believe believes that if he hasn't actually publicly said like everybody agrees um but he's but downey is there like inculcating this group of writers and performers and like all i i think to quote the uh when data carvey hosted like 15 he uh he did a monologue in which he sang a song 86 to 93 is the best was the best um which was sort of tongue-in-cheek but also like kind of true like that's where peak writing and peak performers like it all came together and like all the the commercial parodies were the best during that period um the political stuff was great anyway so that's that period then he does the norm mcdonald stuff right and it's like he's already been at the show off and on for 20 years at that point yeah then he has that final period of being you know being in that doing just just the political stuff basically from like 99 to 2013 um those that 2000 presidential debate sketch is is the is the funniest political comedy ever i i would put it
Sonny00:59:54up against anything it's the funniest thing it changed the whole trajectory of the show to in are ultimately bad like i i cannot i i i don't watch i don't watch snl live anymore no i nobody really does i guess but i like and this is probably not actually literally true but like every time i have turned it on it has been a political sketch in this vein like it used to be it used that was not always the case that was not always the case they would they would do other cold opens but every cold open i remember seeing for the last like 15 years
JVL01:00:30well for the last 10 years i mean it was all it was all a thing happening for the last 10 years
Mike01:00:36but i would say i would say sonny i would say in in the show's defense they learned from alec baldwin trump was was god-awful and like nobody who appreciates comedy or the show a believes that that was good for the show or good for comedy they've they've done it all i think this this new guy does trump is so much better he's fantastic and he does very good and he has a he has a point of view on the character of trump like the the thing that nobody gets that jim downey may have gotten sorry just going around here is like these these political characters like you want to do satire they're characters right like they're not the same person you know you're not doing trump and you're not using this to like just for the purpose of being like isn't this one stupid you know right like they have to be a fully realized character um and just to go back to that 2000 presidential sketch like that is a it's a master class in doing political satire because both of those characters uh daryl hammond as al gore and will ferrell as george w bush are they are fully realized characters who are who who you could drop them into another snl sketch right and they're like they're understandable as characters and they're they're sort of they're they're they're unrelenting in their kind of ignorance of where they are and what they're doing and they have their their crutches they have their their their catchphrases and they are sketch characters first and that's what makes the political satire and the political uh comedy of it so great um i
Sonny01:02:18watch that sketch like like once a year if not more um it's fantastic so and they they also it's come to define the real people in 100 percent in a in a in a very real and tangible way i think i mean bush in particular but also gore and then uh palin obviously later like the the dana carvey's
JVL01:02:43hw yes came to define hw in ways so much that when hw lost in 1992 at the white house christmas
Mike01:02:52party dana carvey came to the white house christmas party at the president's invitation and did bush did poppy bush in front of the staff it was yeah it was great but norm norm's bob dole
JVL01:03:04came to define bob dole i i would say hammond's bill clinton was never really like it was fine but it was never definitional uh the who who was it who did the ford following it was that dan akroyd no that's chevy chase no that was chevy chase who's more like that was a which he wasn't down he wasn't writing that but yeah um yeah i mean i'd say a lot of snl presidential characters have come to be pretty definitional trump is not one of them because trump he's his own his own character totally i mean um biden biden's a great example right
Mike01:03:39the jason sudeikis version oh yeah that's true i guess very much um anyway so i i loved like reliving some of these sketches i know some of them by heart like first city wide or the grace and morehead securities he's like you know i came here to murder him but i really appreciate
JVL01:03:57his honesty downey as a performer is fantastic it's actually i wonder why he didn't do more that's a good question it just should have been used more because he's really again that billy madison bit it's not just the writing and the writing on is really good but his delivery in that i mean it's like a 30 second gag it's so short and it is and samler says this it's
Mike01:04:23the funniest thing in the movie yeah it's the one everybody quotes it's the it's the most memeable part and i do like how he says uh how he's how he says that i'm sure that he said that to me and farley like some version of that like when we were at the show um yeah i don't know what else to say other than like we're all writers like like we love we love the love that this writer is getting it's like yes he is the most important person speaking speaking of
Sonny01:04:53farley though it is interesting because they talk about the chippendales sketch here yes and they talk about it as like oh this is a great sketch but remember the other there's another interview with odin kirk it was bob and bob odin kirk who's like i hated that sketch i thought it was terrible i thought it killed chris farley like i i was like i well
Mike01:05:12and bob odin kirk is very was very protective of farley because i knew him in chicago um wrote wrote the original um matt foley sketch that was that odin kirk used to perform that as matt foley until farley came along and then farley became matt foley so smigel disagrees with it like there is like a huge debate and i think odin kirk's kind of on an island about whether or not that
JVL01:05:37sketch is is it was was fair or good to farley so what is what is the sketch where somebody saw and i can't even tell you who it is and but somebody says like this sketch i remember at the time and it didn't make me laugh but it's also the one i remember 30 years later
Mike01:05:55oh because john mulaney he's talking about yes john mulaney and he's talking about um was it wasn't mclaughlin group it was oh i wish i could remember which one that was um right because it was at myers it might have been seth myers it was one of those oh yeah yeah
JVL01:06:13it is seth myers it was seth myers yeah i can't i'm trying to remember what it was but it was one he said and i was like yeah that's actually true like it when it didn't strike me as super funny at the time but i but i it never left my brain like it was in my brain the entire time i have to go back and look
Mike01:06:29i i also really liked the kind of the payoff of this was i believe this is in the documentary now i'm mixing up what i've read and seen other other places i think it was in the doc uh where at the 40th anniversary show um a a sketch that had basically been jim downey and bill murray like like fucking around in the office jaws thing right which was right the jaws uh you know it's nick the lounge singer singing the jaws thing um and uh that that like they they like put it into the show but murray didn't show up until like the last minute and then all of a sudden he just like walked out there and did it and it was like this sort of right the longest 40 years between uh the writing of a sketch and the execution of it uh
JVL01:07:21that was great um yeah i don't know
Mike01:07:24i don't know what they're what else there is to say it was nice it was nice for lauren michaels to be in this as well because lauren michaels has earned a reputation as being you know imperious and um and controlling everything and um you know i think it's a recognition i will say there's one thing about the about the norm getting fired story that i did learn that i hadn't heard or at least i hadn't heard before and maybe this is whitewashing history or whatever but i have never heard lauren michaels talk as much as he did about it and about he claimed that he tried to fight it and that it was he said he says at one point he's the only time i was ever overruled or one of the only times he was ever overruled i don't know how true that is i don't know whether to believe that or not that's a lot of this as landerman says at the beginning right like this is just another documentary for lauren michaels to make money by like doing one about his writers um but it was i've read everything about that incident so it was just it was a little more so anyway any other final thoughts on down he wrote that no all right all right well uh that is all the time we're given to this episode join us over at subbeacon.com and we will talk to you next time yeah you know
JVL01:08:46who the real heroes are the writers yeah baby well this i mean this is a thing that i mean you we take this for granted but i think a lot of casual fans do not which is that the most successful people at center night live tend to be the people who are the best writers and they you know like you can't just be a funny performer in comedy you you have to be able to come up with material you have to be able to write and like you know eddie murphy could write like he's just funny but like you listen to eddie murphy stand up he does great stand up he's funny uh bill murray bill murray doesn't do stand bill murray i wonder how much of his him is a writer and how much of him is just like being around um you know like you know he improvises a lot of stuff i'm not sure how much of a writer he is there's a lot of writing in spade sandler well
Mike01:09:40so spade spade is an interesting point because he and he's talked about this he he basically feels like he was he didn't know what he was doing he didn't even know how to write a sketch when he was a writer performer he wasn't getting on because dana car everybody thought he looked like dana carvey and so he was like dana carvey stand-in literally he tells a story about being a stand-in for like an election special he was he had the whole ross perot makeup on because it was it was clinton perot and bush and it turned out he found out during the taping that he was only used for the wide shots and that they would pull him out and then pre-tape carvey as anyway so but he survives in large part because of his strength as a writer and and i think that that's why i think you're right i think
Sonny01:10:26you're right about that well he had the great weekend updates like all the people who do the all the people who do the weekend update interstitial bits i think write their own
JVL01:10:36stuff right yes yes a lot of you guys on jost and shay they have great chemistry um
Mike01:10:44they're fine i mean i honestly for me though like these weekend update things like it's it's it's norm and and dennis miller like they're very different but like both of them are just they're they dennis miller saved the segment and norm distilled it down i know you don't it's you're not a huge fan of it jvl but he distilled it down to like the pure black tar version of it and it's
Sonny01:11:07just there's there's no competing but just a chair good i'm i like i this is gonna sound i i like i'm a total easy lay when it comes to weekend update i like all weekend update anchors i just i just like the segment i like i i find the segment very enjoyable and entertaining and the only one who i did not really like and it you know part of this is just because of the norm thing but was colin quinn but like it's it's not it's not like i didn't i didn't blame colin quinn exactly but he was not the right person for the segment just because his deliveries were all kind like he doesn't he's a sacrificial lamb he was a sacrificial lamb but he also just doesn't speak well
Mike01:11:49you know like he's right he has he has like a rough around the edges new yorker
Sonny01:11:53he doesn't he doesn't enunciate like you need to and like he is he's in new york he's just like a new york guy he's like oh i'm at the donut shop you know i don't know he was on that he was on
Mike01:12:04that mtv show right what was that called uh oh they had to wear like a dunce cap or something yeah um yeah uh anyway um yeah i don't know i i really cannot stand uh particularly the tina fey
Sonny01:12:19weekend updates i thought these were terrible and i i much i much preferred fey and myers totally agree totally tina fey and seth meyer is very good i i amy puller seth meyer or amy amy puller and seth meyer thank you wait no tina fey and jimmy fallon timmy i like the timmy tina fey jimmy fallon sorry i i also agree yeah they had good chemistry yeah we're fantastic but i would
Mike01:12:48say is che to bring back to your question jvl che brings a level of danger to it that has not been there since norm that i really i really che is that guy's really good yes che is che is great
Sonny01:13:03and like jose is the perfect foil for him because as mike as mike says they're like there is this element where i'm never 100 sure what michael che like i'm not sure exactly what line he will walk up to and this is the the best thing that they have maybe have ever done on weekend update is the joke swap the jokes which is just like so good
Mike01:13:23the joke swap the joke swap they are me every time just i mean it is the best it's so subversive too right like it gets in jokes that would never fly on like ever like you could not you could not in the straightforward format get those jokes through couldn't do that way it's it's it's terrific it's like exactly what what comedy on late night tv should be yeah
JVL01:13:48do you guys think jose is going to take over the show when lauren leaves is he the uh the fair-haired
Sonny01:13:52boy um i think the show dies when i think the show dies too yeah i think it's i think it's
Mike01:13:59over i think i've heard him i've heard keenan thompson which is not gonna happen um i've heard steve higgins um i i just don't think any of them can do it i think keenan thompson is really really
JVL01:14:12funny and i was surprised at how little he had to say in this documentary
Mike01:14:17he's not loquacious i will say i've listened to him on podcasts he does not have a lot to say about things and i don't know what i don't know how to interpret that but i've heard him on plenty of podcasts and he just is he hits light touch not a talker not a talker i'm sure it's fine
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