Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade - Ted Sarandos
Episode Date: March 6, 2024The state of comedy, the Netflix journey, and Chappelle on SNL with Ted Sarandos. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Lear...n more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Today's guest David. It's
Probably one of the most influential
producers of television of all time and especially right now Ted Serrano's of Netflix who's in charge of billions of dollars
Now Ted Serandos of Netflix, who's in charge of billions of dollars allocated to shows and is also an incredible Saturday Night Live and stand-up comedy fan.
And he's a very good friend of David's.
I know him casually, but he's a really nice guy.
David?
I agree.
He knows SNL.
He knows the podcasts.
He listens and has comments all the time, which is very
nice for a guy who could not be more busy.
We talked about his schedule, we talked about all these shows he has to keep an eye on,
the pressures of being the boss.
I always think of him up in the world of those guys that run companies like Bezos.
I think you were saying, you know, Ted's so normal.
He's not jacked and juiced yet.
He's the most regular humble person you'd ever meet.
He has not gotten on a boat.
He hasn't made a boat.
Yeah, he hasn't made a rocket ship yet,
but he's just a powerful guy that's very low key.
So I like that kind of thing.
Very fun, great laugher, knows a ton about comedy.
And we get into different comic specials. And he gets a lot of pressure sometimes when
things seemingly go too far. And what do you do about that? And we had a lot of great,
a lot of great talk with him and all of his shows he's doing that are
hitting. And how do you know when the show is a hit? All over the world, you know, what the Squid Game meant to these streaming platforms
and one of the biggest hits in history
and the authenticity of it and why.
And so it's really just about the future.
All this program.
It's a lot of learning for me.
I usually think I know everything and I didn't, shockingly. Yeah, I tried to, I was a little pithy in the beginning, Netflix,
FlexFlix. What do you got? You know, and I, I, it was kind of,
I said, I, but you know, these live streaming shows and what they're doing and
what the globalization, the monetization, any otherizations can you add in there?
No, I think those are the Zations.
Those are good.
Yes, but it was a really fun talk and we laughed a lot and he loves comedy.
Bada bing, bada boom.
Here he is, Ted Serandos.
Ted Serandos, what is your official title right now?
Because it seems to jump around chief executive creative.
I'm the co-CEO of Netflix.
Holy tomato.
So does Reed Hastings has to worry about anything?
Is any Reed?
Yeah, Reed is kind of, he's the chairman of the board now.
And he just goes up and he's out of there.
He's very focused on his philanthropy and.
Ice fishing.
He's built a ski mountain in Utah, actually.
Wow.
He owns Powder Mountain.
Power Mountain.
I was going to do it.
It sounds like a Neil Young song.
All to be on Powder Mountain.
Sorry. With the double meaning from the.
Oh, I don't know.
Oh, yeah.
Cannabis. But. Oh, yeah.
So you don't have a jettison. Like you weren't doing this what would you want to do?
I don't you know honestly next year. I'm 25 years at Netflix and so my whole yeah, so my whole career has been
In home in either video stores or video distribution or Netflix
Yes, so if I was not doing this I'd be probably doing much the same,
many of the same things.
Cause like I always thought
if I didn't have to make money,
I would like operate a movie,
like a retrospective movie theater or something like that.
You're like Quint Tertino in that you both were steeped
in movies from working
and you managing regional video stores.
And now you just said, you'd like to have a vintage movie
theater and Tarantino has one of those in LA.
So do you mind if I call you Quinton
for the rest of the interview?
Please, please.
I will direct 10 movies in my lifetime.
That's right.
They just ripped one down by the Grove.
Is that true Ted?
There was one on Beverly by the Grove in Fairfax,
old school one, I think they just
closed down to remodel and just never reopened. You know, hopefully they're opening a club
Monaco or something important. So I'd like to leave with this because it might put a smile
on your face. So this is trending in these last few weeks. The kids are all talking about this?
Well, this is like media that covers companies. Netflix won the streaming wars. Does
that make you smile? Make you go, eh, we got a lot of work to do? Or is that scare you in a way?
Netflix won the streaming wars with 260 million subscribers. Well, two years ago,
they were writing, bring in the paddles. I think we lost them. I know, you're right, it turned.
What's it just so.
I told everyone here, don't take that headline seriously
or take this headline seriously.
That implies that the streaming wars are over.
It's the streaming is just the natural evolution of media.
It's what people want because it's on demand
and it's in their control and they get tons of choice and the economics are so much better than the
old pay TV model used to be.
So I just think it's on, we're it's a natural course and it's very
in early, early as days.
So the, there's no war that's over, but there's lots of battles and
we're going to do a nice.
Well, the, uh, comedians doing Saturday Night Live theme podcast war has
not been declared over, but we're in the conversation.
Here's what my blink curious thing about you. You guys have a show and you think it's going to be a
smash in whatever metrics you're using billions, but yeah, and it just does it underperforms and
like, oh, holy shit, or the opposite. Okay. Well, let's take a chance on that one. I don't know, and it's a smash.
Yeah.
So Squid Game versus,
what was the biggest smash sort of surprise?
Was Squid Game an actual surprise?
Squid Game was the most watched,
yeah, it's the most watched show in the history
of the company around the world, including in the US.
And it was a surprise in that it was really meant,
like all of our local productions are meant to be thrilling to the local population. And they're not meant to be
engineered to be global or anything. So what we have found is that the more authentically local
a show is, weirdly, the more it travels. Because I think people see it as authentic, you know,
as more authentic and real. So in that case, it was a relatively expensive
Korean television show, but it actually just,
within about three days on Netflix,
it just exploded everywhere.
Oh, no, did you pick it up or did you go produce it
and put it together?
So the director Wang who was pitching it,
had pitched it around the world for about 10 years
as a movie.
And our Korea team, which is incredible
and in our office in Seoul, met with him and said, this is a pretty on the nose Korean
cinema, you know, sci-fi story. Have you thought about exploring him and opening the world
up a lot more and came up with the idea of 10. He went off and rewrote the scripts and
smart Korean Korean. I saw a picture on your Instagram.
Ted, I don't follow many people, so this is sort of...
I want to hear this one.
But he... I think you're on the set of...
It's the game two.
Yeah.
Season two, and they're shooting right now.
It was this place like three hours outside of Seoul, So it was like a fun cultural immersion.
You know what they have in Korea?
That's incredible.
The road stop, the rest stops.
Oh, they do.
Ours are kind of scary in the United States.
Or they're closed.
You know, yeah.
Yeah, the ones here, spotless in Korea, spotless.
I have like top line, like very high end food courts in them
and all the regional foods,
like people, like if you live there, you'd actually drive to the rest stop to get the
regional food from that area of Korea.
Go on dates, go to the old ones.
It's a good date, right?
It's a good date, right?
You know, so Netflix, you guys, the red envelopes and the DVDs, so that was a revolution at
the time.
Yeah.
Weirdly, only mailed our last DVD about four months.
That's what I heard about because there was something just nice about it.
The consistency of the branding, the red envelope and the ease of that.
So that was like you and Reid and your other people work with you.
Yeah.
Breaking something new.
Then of course, watch on your computer.
I can watch a movie on computer.
And I do think House of C cards was the first that I remember
Live streaming and my wife and I didn't even know
About live streaming. We had a bad Wi-Fi connection
So it would stop every two minutes and we'd have to do this whole thing and we just thought well
Maybe it'll get better in the future. But anyway, that was a big thing like
Netflix, you know, your brand completely
shifted with that decision. Did you, I mean, that was a huge, huge moment for your company,
right? At that time, 10 years ago. Yeah, you know, it was 2012. And the, at the time we were
building the business up to do streaming. But what's interesting about it is Reed Hastings, this incredible visionary, when I met him in 1999,
he talked about Netflix just like this.
And it's all digital, totally global.
The only thing he didn't see in that vision
was doing original programming.
He thought this would be a better distribution solution,
but we're a tech company, we weren't a creative company. Like Blockbuster, but you just pick one that goes out. Yeah.
Is that what you're saying? Something like that. Yeah. So for us, we were just in a routine meeting
with the producers of House of Cards who also produced a bunch of movies, and they said this
was going to be their first TV package and we want to look at it. And I looked at the package
that they put in front of us, which was, you know, David Fincher directing television,
this Oscar nominated writer writing the scripts
and Kevin Spacey when that was a good thing.
I must say.
Sorry, Robin Wright.
Great actor.
I mean, it's like, yeah, great actor, great actor.
Yeah, great.
I hate things didn't have any psychic visions about him.
But when they brought it in, I said, look, if we were ever going to get into originals,
this would be the one.
It's like the perfect package.
We had three scripts.
It wasn't like we had to do all the development work.
And I looked at it and I said, we greened at the show.
We kind of famously gave them a two season order,
which was pretty unheard of at the time.
Yeah. Mostly because there's no reason you would take a desirable show to Netflix back then.
Oh, just to get ahead of it, did you overpay? What did you pay?
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we paid, the basic is about a hundred million dollar commitment to the show.
But I don't think anyone's even heard of that much money.
At the time, I remember it was bold. It was full boat, as they call it, money.
So that's where we all in.
So we did the move. I came back, I tell Reid that I made the deal and he's like,
well, I thought we don't do this.
And I said, yeah, but for me, honestly, it was if this show works,
it will fundamentally change the course of our business.
And if it doesn't, we'll have overpaid for a show,
which we do all the time.
Well, if it was a race, you got out of the blocks first.
And everyone went, whoa, there's hit shows.
Because the show of the moment was on Netflix.
Yeah.
And so that's huge.
And people forget too, we had, before we did that,
we had like 25 million people streaming on Netflix.
So if you start trying to, if I tried to build the whole business on our
original programming over the last 10 years, we would not be where we're sitting right now.
Well, the other thing, I don't know if it's revolutionary, but you've re,
putting shows that like Arrested Development that get rediscovered on Netflix has become
another lane in your, your brand. Obviously the office was huge and so forth and so on.
So you had to pay a lot for that. Those were gambles at the moment, right?
Well, remember when we were licensing at the beginning all those shows,
nobody really knew what this right was, the streaming rights for a show.
It was either a home video right or a digital right and people didn't really know different studios had it all
constructed differently. when it came to
So television when we were able to license with shows that didn't have enough seasons to get the syndication
And we're off the air. Okay. So weirdly
Arrested development was off the air the year that we were going and
So we had the ability to do arrested development.
And on DVD, it was a very popular show. So we knew that from our own DVD rental data,
was that people love the show. And I actually think that for Arrested Development was one of
those shows that was literally ahead of its time. Most people say that when they're trying to make
you feel good because your show bombed. This thing really was ahead of its time.
Like if you watched it, you really had to binge it because the joke sets up in episode
one and pays off in episode four.
And you really kind of have to watch it in one sitting to see that play out.
And binging, you know, streaming on Netflix was a way to do that.
So that's why I did that.
One of our earliest decisions after House of Cards was to reboot us in development.
So it's sort of hunch plus data.
Yeah, yeah.
And plus you're a comedy fan.
And so you like good comedy and that's,
you're like, this one's actually sort of a clever,
interesting comedy people would appreciate.
And the fact they blow up,
it really reinvigorates a lot of these shows.
Suits especially.
Suits was crazy, but that was,
in the earliest breaking bad and walking dead
We had all those shows right after they were on
Right after the season after they aren't on television and they were small culty shows that just blew up on because of Netflix
Yeah, wow breaking bad. You got into you've year into more live stuff now and we did the Chris Rock thing and
You guys were part of that history with us.
Yeah, so I was afraid to talk.
I never felt more like a white guy in my life.
Like I should just stay quiet right now.
But I got to hang out with Jabbar backstage
and talk to him about, so that was a thrill.
It was fun.
It was fun.
You're going more into live, is that just one area that you guys haven't quite cracked?
Or what are you looking for in live?
What is appealing live that you guys gravitate towards?
Well, I'm looking for things that actually are creatively better because they're live.
But, you know, Saturday Night Live is one of those things that people tune into to see what's going to happen.
And I do think part of the liveness of it is part of the pitch.
Chris Rock Live was an exciting one for us because it had been a year that Chris had not talked about what happened at the Oscars and he was going to in that set. And there was enough
people wanted to hear that story that the liveness of it really mattered. So it was the most watched,
streaming comedy specials since they started tracking it. And I know internally it was the most watched streaming comedy special since they started tracking it And I know internally it was the most talked about for sure of the year
Because yeah, so it's people were rushing home to watch the Chris
What about the after show how did that do in terms of numbers?
No, it actually did it was fun to do because we want, I mean, talk about like doing working
without a net. We had never streamed anything live and we actually did it in two different
cities and pitch back and forth and all that stuff. So our teams were really chopping
off a bunch.
Are you getting, are you ironing it all out now? Like every time you do it, it's a little
easy. What have you done since? What are you, you're doing a tennis thing?
Tennis, March 3rd.
Yeah. That's, and then we, and then we have, on Saturday night, we have the SAG Awards live
on Netflix as well.
Oh, this?
Okay.
On Saturday night.
Yeah, and then we just announced
we did this big deal with WWE.
So WWE Raw is gonna be on every week on Netflix
starting in 25.
And you got the tennis one coming.
And then we're gonna do a bunch of live stuff
from the Netflix is a joke festival this summer
All right
So you can sort of how much lead time sorry Dan
How much lead time do you need if you say you know something's coming up? It sounds kind of cool. Can we get in there?
I mean remember we're not actually we hadn't been built for lives. So this is all yeah
Yeah, no you for us. Oh, we need 60, 60 days or so to get the resources
like that's the right answer. Thank you. Yeah, that is very good. Excellent. Here's a business
question, which I don't know if you want to answer, but the NFL, the money that they're getting,
and I don't know if I got this right, but I believe Amazon, maybe you're a competitor.
I've heard of them. They paid a billion dollars for eight or ten Thursday night footballs. Is that right?
In that area. Yeah, yeah, they so spent that son of a gun. He's on the yacht. I
Think I think actually chose you like the thing I always talk about
I'm not like people so Netflix is against live sports for some reason. No, we're on not at all
Just said those big league live sports the demand for them is so great
that whatever distributor is doing it
doesn't really bring much value to it.
So they don't get much margin for it.
They don't get much profit out of that.
And so we were able to over the last 25 years
build a gigantic company without having a lost leader product.
And I think sports generally,
big league sports tends to be a loss leader for television.
So at some point, I'm pretty confident
we can be twice as big as we are today without doing that.
Who knows beyond that?
Are you talking a half billion subscribers?
If I run the numbers right on my head.
You've rounded down a little.
You've done the math pretty well.
Well, you're 260 and you can double it.
Dana, what about that Paramount Plus bullshit
when they try to throw that in the playhouse?
I hate those guys.
That drove me nuts.
I don't like that flick.
I don't like those Paramount Plus guys.
I don't like them.
Listen, they're going to put...
I'm in my hotel trying to hook my phone up to my laptop
to my TV and I got an antenna on
the ceiling. I'm like, how do I get parent? I just want to come home and watch the goddamn
game. But if that's the future, you're doing a peacock. Peacock force for the playoff game.
You had to join Peacock. Yeah. Anybody. Yeah. It tells you again, 26 million people or something
watched it, but they went from nothing to that. So it's the big people like football turns out.
Sure, but it was sort of a forced situation.
I didn't love.
Well, to your point, it's live.
You don't know what's gonna happen.
There's a huge gambling component.
And then the Taylor Swift effect of like millions of-
Fantasy football.
Fantasy football.
And millions of young women now like are interested in
football.
To gamble.
Yeah.
And gamble.
They're gonna let the gamble too, your idea.
They wouldn't have been to gamble.
They can come lose and play fantasy football when I lose.
It's very addictive losing.
I saw I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put in a pitch for this for them, but I saw a product
that the NFL is working on that basically incorporates all your fantasy football picks,
your gaming and everything.
So you're watching on an iPad and watch the game
through the lens.
Yeah, it's almost like a screen
where it's also all that shit while you're walking out.
I'm sure the future is like,
I'm surprised states don't have gambling everywhere
because everyone's willing to lose everything just to gamble and it just, it seems to be everywhere. Some states
I land, I can't play it on my phone, some I can.
Ted's from Arizona, Dana, just so FYI. I remember you two guys are...
The guys are Arizonians. Yeah.
Dana, you met some of my high school buddies that I've never met before. The Fizer. The Fizer. The Fizer. The Fizer. The Fizer. The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer.
The Fizer. The Fizer. The Fizer. Bateman was there, it was cool to meet him.
David Spade was there.
Mr. Chappelle was there.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
It was a fun night.
That was a fun night.
By the way, with Chappelle, I got two stories for Chappelle.
Just to interrupt you.
Yeah.
One is really good at it.
One is just, first of all, I think it's nice that you're, you know,
I've known you as a comedy fan for years and years.
And so that's truly who you are.
So when you back people when they do a special or you have to come out and get in
front of something and say, I do back a comedian saying what they want, doesn't
mean you agree with it, doesn't mean, just mean let, let people talk.
I think that's commendable and especially we're comics.
So of course we like that.
Uh, definitely.
It's a big bookstore.
You, you can open any book you want or not, you know.
And people like to think about all kinds of diversity except for diversity of thought.
And I think comedy is one of these places where you should have a pretty open playground to figure out, you know,
ideas. And ideas, you know, have to live through conversation.
And I think comedy is a great place to start the conversation.
And right. And some people don't agree.
Some people do. And it's under the guise of a joke sometimes it's it's in the title.
It's a joke. It's in the title.
It's not my stock and trade.
But I do think the comedic mind, you're not supposed to say this, makes you want to say it, you know,
you can say all these things up, but not that thing. You're like,
well, wait a minute. You know, if you immediately got to immediately want to crack that puzzle.
Yes. Right. I mean, yeah. Watching comedy, you sometimes people like that when they say,
oh, he went pretty far. I don't agree with that. But yeah, they're trying stuff. It's not the same
six jokes that everyone's allowed to use. I think it's funny. I think that people like, you know,
when they talk about comedy and try to put it into camps
and like, well, so people talk to work blue
and some people don't and one's better than the other.
I actually think it's, they're just,
it's an art form that has a lot of different shapes.
And if you, some people like if you do shock comedy,
the hard thing I've been watching a lot of comedy
over the years, like the hard thing is getting
the audience back.
So it's actually just a different kind of art
when you went out and got,
it's because it's not just a cheap laugh,
you have to actually bring the audience back in too.
So you have to be able to master a lot of different things.
And you also have to have a clever angle.
I mean, if you want to keep a crowd,
if you're going to do these things,
if you have an interesting angle or something
that comes out of nowhere,
I think it makes it smarter.
And there's, it's more fun to listen to, but you're also more of a connoisseur.
You've been doing all your life and now you're seeing every special.
And then you've got hand and gas.
You've got the different ranges of people and then people get mad at you.
And then they come back and do a special again.
And then you're like, okay, well, yeah, I think down deep, they know
you're letting these things
go on.
So they go, oh, this is the place to do it.
Yeah.
And I think it's a hard thing for me too that the keep in mind that we try to do a lot of
variety because just like Netflix itself, people like some shows, they're like, oh,
that's what we have so much to watch on Netflix because tastes are really diverse.
And it's certainly within comedy.
So with the point I was trying
to make when people got angry was this idea that, you know, if you don't like that idea,
switch it and find another one. Find one you do like.
It seems pretty simple.
It's got a lot of choices. Yeah. Yeah.
And what about Chappelle when we, when you, when we had your party the other night and
he has all these people over the Grammys, Chappelle's up for one of the one-to-sikes,
maybe, maybe Aziz was up for one of the one to Sykes maybe. Maybe Aziz was
up for one. And Chris Rock.
Sarah Silverman.
And Sarah Silverman, yeah. So Ted, Ted went around. First of
all, it's the most fun, Dana, you were invited, you couldn't
come, but you, you're obviously invited.
I heard all, I heard all about it.
It's so fun. So he's got two tables. It's pretty much only
comedians. We all have a place setting and so you sit down
and then Ted walks around and it's pretty hard to do this,
Ted stops at each person, Sarah Silverman's here
and she's done this and this and we all know her
from this and this and then he was, and I go,
oh my God, he's doing it to everyone.
And it's so hard.
He had to keep us entertained, know the credits,
know something about the person.
And he's going down, up and down.
Remember this Ted?
Yeah, kind of running.
And he gets, and so our senior hall was outside.
Remember this, so he's outside.
Ted has already thanked Dave Chappelle,
you know, all the people actually up for Grammy
for the dinner.
And he does this whole thing about Chappelle.
Very nice. Then Chappelle up for Grammy for the dinner. And he does this whole thing about Chappelle. Very nice.
Then Chappelle standing behind me for some reason.
And so when Ted gets to me, right when he gets to me to just fawn over me for
I was about to fawn.
Fawn.
And he was really just working his way to the main event, which is me.
And then so here, so our senior goes, do Dave Chappelle, he's hiding behind and you're politely like, well, I did talk
about Dave, but you know, I'll say a few words again. And, and
Dave takes the mic. There was a mic. Okay. Was there a mic?
No, no, Mike, he just took the mic. Okay, he's, but he's got a
voice. He says, uh, I can't believe I'm here with all my favorite comedian. He's so nice.
And then he starts going to each person and I'm like, wait, is he doing what Ted's doing?
And so now, just do that. So now we're all, I'm staring because I've got, uh, there's a little
shrubbery on the tables, but I've got, um, Alley Wong and Bill Hader right in front of me. So,
and rock is behind. So I'm next and Ted's just waiting to keep going
and she felt it probably 15 minutes.
He did like a set.
And then he stopped and then Ted's like,
and David's face.
He had to get right.
He was like, it was like,
it was like, and the professor had Marianne,
he kind of wrapped it up.
He's like, oh, there's Chris Rock, I'm blah, blah, blah,
but it was pretty hilarious because everyone was waiting.
I'll tell you a very short story about Ted
because I do think it speaks to your vibe.
Please.
Ted's character, someone in your position,
I would just say you don't have an ego around it at all.
And that informs you all the time.
Cause we know heads of big things in Hollywood,
there's a lot of, you know,
guys, hey kid, and you know, all that kind of stuff.
And you're the opposite.
So Mike and I, Mike Myers and I, Wayne Swirl,
280,000 later.
Inflation adjusted, 400 million.
Inflation adjusted. So million. 10 hundred quillian. Inflation adjusted.
So we're sitting in a table and Ted comes over, there's no chair around.
So Ted takes a knee beneath Mike and I and talks to us for 15 minutes as a fan of all
comedy and everything.
I mean it was the most, you know, and then-
Sounds about right.
I said, well, Ted, you're, you know-
Very nice.
And Ted-
Ted's very polite.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, it's like, he goes, this was my favorite moment of the Oscars, and he leaves and I said,
my wife, well, that's the guy who runs Netflix, you know.
She's like, why?
She goes, who's that, who's that Joker?
Who comes over? So anyway, I just wanted the audience to know that about you.
Thank you.
And that's why people come to your house and you're popular for a guy in that position you're in.
You wear it very well, that's all I'll say.
Well, thank you, man.
Look, I think probably I came to this completely as a fan.
And I think a lot of folks in my role
work their way up from the mail room
or from the junior development positions
and those kind of things
I grind it down and grind it down to a place where they don't really like the thing they do anymore and
I love it and I love
Creative people. I love what you do for the world and for me. It's like I think it's really it
It's what makes me bounce out of bed in the morning
because I feel like I'm doing something that matters to people and really it's what you do and it's enabling that is the
important part it sounds overwhelming to have so much on your plate
because I don't even know if you still sit
in pitch meetings, but it's probably,
there's probably too many things going on,
but just the global, the markets,
and what's gonna be ahead, and what's gonna be down.
You have to love it because the hours suck.
Oh my God.
Just to fact you go to the set and and go to a soul to go to that
Just that's three days out of your life just for one thing and data
You probably know this too, but I when I say I came to this as a fan growing up in Phoenix
It wasn't that easy to be a fan of entertainment didn't really come to Phoenix that wasn't bumping
No, and then David I remember because I used to in Arizona I grew up you could the drinking age was 19
so you could start sneaking into bars when you're like 16 17 and
Mom my mom my friends went to the different dance clubs and that kind of stuff and I didn't dance
So I used to go to the comedy club and and I would see a young David Spade
You know and by the I was thinking about this other night
What I when I was seeing David Spade, you know, and by the, I was thinking about this other night,
what I, when I was seeing David do his standup,
this is like Anderson's Fifth Estate, NFL,
Chuckles, Vinnie Bones.
NFL Club, Chuckles, Vinnie Bones, all right.
David would get up and do something that was,
I couldn't put my finger on,
because I hadn't yet seen enough comedy, I think,
to understand how different what you were doing was
in Arizona.
You were doing like a New York brand of comedy
that I had not seen before.
And I know it wasn't, you're not from New York,
so it wasn't that.
But it was that level of kind of,
and when I finally realized what you were doing
is at Chuckles one night, I went to see a Belzer.
And I go, oh, that is the vibe, that's the rhythm,
that's the sarcasm, the whole bit of it.
Like that to me is for the clearest lie
and I could see from someone else
to what you were doing at that time was Belzer.
Oh, that's not, you know, when I started,
I only knew people from the Tonight Show, you know,
I'd only watched that.
So I was sort of luckily not so influenced by, if I grew up on the East Coast, you're
seeing 10 comics at night at the clubs, you know, and they're all pretty smooth.
And so not knowing as much, I'm doing weirder bits because I don't know what's right or
wrong.
You're just trying stuff that's funny to me and my friends.
And that sort of helped me.
And I only really got into the improv when I came out.
I think I was 19 or 20 because I just looking back,
I had a different look. I had a kind of a clever act, not a ton of material, but I was
blonde here. Everyone else was Belzer. It was Leno, Belzer, all those guys.
But it was the confidence level that Belzer has on stage. That's what I saw. And it was
very interesting to see it in a very young guy.
Yeah. And there's really no confidence there.
Fake it till you make it. very young guy. Yeah, there's really no confidence there.
You fake it to make it. I saw you got it.
I saw Belzer catch a rising star in the 70s, I think.
And he was doing it.
Yeah, he was the ultimate just powerhouse cocky.
And he was doing a bit about a proctology bit.
You know, keep keep keep out of my ass.
OK, here's a 20. Stay out of my ass.
And then, you know, obviously he was an influence on Dennis Miller who then took it to his own
Place but that's kind of sarcasm and specificity. I see a lot of Dennis in David at times and also calling back quickly
Words and references so yeah, and I think this idea that if something didn't work, it wasn't the it wasn't the end of the
center end of my day. It's like you had the right just flow right into something that
make fun of the audience for laughing at the joke.
Right. Yeah. Sometimes when I first went on at Chuckles at a at an amateur night, my literally
first night, the guy said, I think I told you this day when I get off just some guys
as the manager, he doesn't probably give a fuck about comedy.
But I go, hey man, how was it knowing I bombed?
And but I wanted to come back,
even though it's probably free to do four minutes.
And he goes, I don't know, it was all right.
He goes, actually what you said between was funnier.
And then he walked away and I was like,
and then that's my whole life.
That's my whole life.
Self deprecating.
You knew what to do. Throw away jokes, this kind of thing. And then it just and then that's my whole life. That's my whole self Deprecated you know what to do. Yeah, you know away jokes this kind of thing and then it just turned into that
Yeah, you were the opposite of please love me. Maybe I was in that motor one point. Come on everybody
You know Phoenix Dave then I saw you at the celebrity theater. Oh
Did you see that SNL show with Kevin Neal and Dana and was it me Dennis and Kevin? Oh, did you see that SNL show with Kevin, Neil and Dana and Dennis? Was it me, Dennis and Kevin?
Oh, that's unreal.
I saw that.
I was so jealous.
That was the swatch tour.
I think I just went to watch.
Yes.
I wasn't on SNL yet and I was like, holy shit.
I think they were getting six grand a night and I was shitting.
I couldn't believe it.
I remember that show because it was the three of us.
And I don't know.
I think I came back and then someone I'm on stage
and someone had a big stock of broccoli
and threw it as far as it could hit me in the back.
Hitchhawk Broccoli, but it's the celebrity theater.
I went back with Mike Myers there actually
and he opened for me.
But that was a, that's a cool theater.
I mean, in the round is can be tricky,
but I remember that was a hot theater.
That's where Nate forgot to do the special.
Louis. That was an embarrassment of to do the special. Louis.
It was an embarrassment of riches for comedy because it was drivable from LA.
Yeah, yeah.
They can go and work on the weekends in Phoenix.
Well, always great audiences, the improv and stuff like
sophisticated, but not cynical.
You know, there's always going to be terrible audiences because it was hot.
So people would be working outside and a little bit drunk
and tired from being hot. But the audiences always were great.
Yeah, I mean.
You know, it's funny is Ted's my same age, Dana, and I think, right, Ted?
Yeah.
And so we are...
We are 47.
When you grow up in Arizona, I was like so into Gilligan's Island and, you know, happy
days and work in Mindy. and it's funny that you can laugh
at those and be so and love them so much.
But later you go, that's a little corny
or that's a little not what I do.
It's hard to steer because you're told that's funny.
You know, all those shows, they were funny though.
Yeah.
I don't know what about it, but it wasn't totally my style.
But at the time I was, I couldn't get enough of those shows.
Were you into those shows?
Oh yeah, but for comedians, there were tropes.
I mean, one thing you would do, this is an old reference,
but you get the microphone cord,
you'd go up and you'd wave the microphone cord
and go rolling, rolling, rolling,
keep them doggies going, ride.
You know, there was a lot of those little
closer don't tell everyone that but yeah I'm on I do all that stuff you know I
haven't seen them around a while but Tim Tomerson remember that guy yeah we did
all the stagecoach and all that John Wayne's sub well we're going over the
hill pappy and all the sound effects.
I mean, I do like the assortment pack of stand-up. I do like that the, you know, the Kenison can come on or carrot top, you know, Kenison not anymore, obviously, but in the day,
it was a lot of different styles of comedy., do you think, this is a good question for you,
where are we right now in the world to stand up?
Are they mimicking each other?
Is Shane the newest kind of different type of guy?
I mean, how do you see it?
Yeah, I think it's in, you know,
I think comedy always comes in waves.
So, and I think there's this interesting wave right now
with like Nate and Shane too.
I think that has to be it.
But basically there's a group of folks who appeal to an audience and then they can get
it broad and then another one comes out and they make it broad.
So I really feel like no other time you really have to pay attention to who's out there and
what they're doing.
And TikTok can give you a funny read on things. For the most part, what you want to see is just
somebody, the way an audience really reacts to the comedian, which you don't see at all in social media.
Well, that's the other revolution for people of my age group. It's like, comedians are not
household names, sell out arenas. They either have a podcast or their
Netflix special. I was on Burr-Crystia shows, super nice. Burr's great. And he was flying,
he was going to go to Europe the next day and he's playing, he's going to headline Berlin and
Edinburgh, it's like amazing. One of our early specials we did with Bill Burr,
and I remember Bill Cullin said, hey, are you guys in like other countries? I go, yeah, yeah, I could like this sold out shows in Denmark and Norway.
And so it really, I think that that Netflix special is the thing that's kind of at the
center of this battle.
You definitely need it because the formula now Dana, and you know this and Ted knows
this is like these guys that are, you work on your hour, everyone talks about their hour, they're getting together.
It's always like, it's insinuated, it's for Netflix,
but they're not buying them all, but they're like,
I'm working on my hour, I'm doing my special.
Doesn't mean Netflix is paying for it.
Some people are just too new and they're not good enough,
but the idea is to get an hour, to hopefully get on Netflix,
and then that's a big calling card around the world.
And then you go tour, you have to sort of come up with a pretty new hour, go out. So you bring
a crowd out. Nate is great at this. Nate Bregazzi did this. And it just got bigger every time. And
then you get more fans. And you go out live and they see you. And then they go look for your new
hour. And then you want, and Bert did that. And you know, Segura and Bill Byrd all these guys are and you have to be good and then
They show up and then you just keep and it was playing theaters like Ted Beck and Scottsdale
Leno maybe played gamut auditorium or celebrity, but their Seinfeld maybe I think you I think I
Ran into you at the Seinfeld show at the Gammaj and I don't
know. Oh wow. I don't remember who I was trying to think of the other day whether it was Leno with
him maybe because they did it was definitely Seinfeld you were sitting like two rows ahead and we
talked about it. Jesus you know and that was hard to fill a theater and you know I when I do clubs
during SNL or just shoot me or whenever I would always just go book even if it's an
Irvine improv you do even seven nights it's a big room but yeah I never thought about
jumping to theaters and then my manager's like why don't you just ever just book a theater
tour you'd never if you're filling out this many seats in these yeah and so I go to people
like everyone's doing that I was really late to the game I think I heard Bert Kreischer describe
Like the whole business of how to book clubs and how to do his spitting an ethics special what to do after that and he's like
It's a very he's super tuned into the business model for sure as a pod and he has clips out and like Bobby Lee
Theo like these guys said it's a whole the younger generation really loves them. Yeah, yeah, it's a whole, I know the younger generation really loves them. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. And it can put you, I mean, like you said, if it's a great hour,
it can definitely change the trajectory of everything.
And you can build on it and build on it.
And it's a recurring thing.
It has been working out for years.
And it could be, and for me,
it had been back to the diversity part.
It might be something as big as 50,000 people at Dodger Stadium for Gabe,
a Glacias or Norm McDonald's last special.
He just shot it like this in front of a webcam.
Actually less than this.
We watch it.
Can we watch it?
Can we watch it together?
We were like, oh, okay.
So this, I mean, you know what?
It's the material.
Everyone worries about the backdrop and the shit.
Are you funny or not?
It really, you can look through all the clutter.
And Norm was funny just talking. And the guys who play Dodger Stadium are funny. Are you funny or not? It really, you can look through all the clutter and Norm was funny just talking
and the guys at Blade Outer Stadium are funny.
How many do you do?
Do you do one?
Is it up to one a week now or not?
There's a bunch, there's ones that we film,
there's some that we license.
So between all that, there's probably one a week
that'll come out.
Yeah, it was funny when I first signed Chris
to do his first special at Netflix, Chris Chris goes you got a lot of ordinaries not a lot of specials
Well it used to be a really a big huge deal
But I mean for you personally it must be kind of satisfying
Especially somebody who's kind of treadmilling along sort of their first big break and then it's happening on your platform
and then their dreams come true. Kind of fun. That's the best. It is the best because you think about
again kind of this is that technology, internet, what it brings to things like what it would have
taken for a Bert Kreischer to turn into a Bert Kreischer, you know, without it, it would have
been really tough and long and it's been hard. Allie wall really did that. Pregnant one was great.
Yeah.
And then you start rippling across the things like she just now she
has won all the awards for beef and yeah.
You know, yeah, did it made a really great movie for us a couple of years ago.
So I think there's the cool thing is because we do so much.
The platform is so open.
You can, you know, David has done three great movies for Netflix and a
great couple of great Netflix specials.
And well, what was the billions of minutes that world missing? and you can, you know, David has done three great movies for Netflix and a great couple of great Netflix specials.
And well, what was the billions of minutes
that World Missy got?
I love the metric of billions of minutes watched
for World the Wrong Missy.
It's getting up there.
But you always, you always met your wrong Missy,
but I think the do-over is another.
Oh, the do-over.
Well, I try to really like to give that a little bit
to Sandler because we did together. So he gets some credit, but I always say that whenever his name is mentioned
But I did father of the year
Yeah, which was for Tyler who on abducting wrong missy, but father of the year
I think I talked to you guys after it and maybe Scott stuber said
Hey, this did really well for us.
We're going to keep looking for another one.
I'm like, oh, it came out.
It was when you didn't know how well it went because it just came out and people would say,
hey, I saw Father of the Year and you go great.
But by the time the wrong missy came out,
there was numbers at the bottom.
When it said number one, that means something.
Now it's like looking in the paper and saying,
what was the number one movie this weekend?
So you go one of you guys
You told me it was doing well then you said it's number one
They says number one in the world. Yeah, and then it was still and then it just kept going
So luckily the wrong missy really was another generation of people that yeah have a big movie out that they
Talk I get talked about every day
So it's fun
I talked to filmmakers all the time and they and I do think that they really like you know
The idea of the movie going through the traditional release and all those things because that's what they grew up on
Yeah, but the truth is they all say the same thing which is when my movie premieres on Netflix
I hear it from the world and I used to be that I would be screaming it to the world that my movies out now
The world tells me my movies out. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
That's true, cause it could be the next day
you can hear about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it was unfortunately during COVID,
so I had to throw myself a little party.
By the way, I was gonna, I was wondering how much,
you know, I love this podcast because it's all about SNL
and because David knows I love SNL stories.
I love listening to them for you guys.
And I was, I heard your Bill Simmons,
I go, what's going on in that guy's life?
That he knows every single thing that ever happened.
I was like Ted's the biggest fan.
I got nervous.
Ted hits me when he hears almost every podcast.
He knows he's listening somewhere.
So that was one of the reasons we thought it'd be fun
to have you on.
And then Bill Simmons really aficionado.
He really, he had some deep cuts
and he didn't want to talk about anything sports. We had all these sports questions for him. He was that in psychopedic. That's pretty
it was spooky listening to I was just stunned when I said, OK, what was the sketch of the night on
the when Michael Jordan hosted? Oh, that was Stuart Smalley. Yeah. And if you'd give me 15 minutes,
I might have come up with that. I'm good. Also, when Michael Jordan was the,
we were the all white basketball team in the 50s
and we didn't want to on our team.
You know, it was like all of us were the,
the shitty players and we're like,
we don't like this guy.
We had a lot of fun.
I was thinking about like what,
he said something interesting about like his age
when the show started and all that.
He's two years younger than,
or do you say 68 or 69?
I was born in 64.
That's when he was, when he was born.
Oh yeah.
When he was in grade school in high school,
it was perfect time.
Yeah.
So me, I'm a complete TV nerd.
I grew up like the reason I think that my direct line
to why I love comedy so much was I didn't sleep a lot
as a kid and I used to watch all the old TV shows,
Burns and Allen and Jack Benny,
who were doing stand up essentially and then acting out the shows.
And then, and so it was a real natural then to Carson. And so when
SNL came on, I was a 10, I guess I was 10 years old. I was born 64.
So 11. Yeah.
And love would not miss an episode, you know, an episode. And then an
album, they released a comedy album, the best of SNL. Just played like a comedy album and I play it nonstop.
So I remember all those bits by line, word for word,
the word association with Chevy Chase and the Breyer.
I got in trouble in school for repeating it.
Oh yeah, of course you did.
But even like the dumb things like, remember the singing group with Gilda and Jane Curtin and Lorraine Newman
that's the tribute to Chevy Chase song they did?
Yeah.
Chevy, we love when you fall down,
eats that food right on my TV.
But anyway, so just being able to memorize and watch
over and over again and see it.
And that's before the internet.
So the idea that it's been that incredibly socially and relevant, and nothing else will ever touch
the relevance of Lorne and SNL in show business history.
No, I don't know if you've heard this quote. Steve Higgins told me that Lorne wrote the
Constitution of Saturday Night Live
and then he lets each cast and the writers
kind of own it in their own way
and he's sort of a guiding person there.
It'd be nice if Jen was in that sketch, you know?
I mean, he sort of moves the sketches around very subtly.
Any Lorne story before we got to let you go yeah no I cup I mean my connection to the show only only can is most is mostly fandom going to see the
show live to me is still the most thrilling thing to do in the world I'm
ever tired of it the first time I got invited I got Lauren invited me and I got that seat like right in the center
above the week, you know, the center stage. Oh, right on top.
Yeah, which I said, well, this is the best seat in the house.
Yeah, I mean, yes.
And right after the monologue, his assistant came up and said,
hey, Lauren, we'd like to know if you wanted to come down underneath
and watch a show with him.
And I go, will he ever invite me back if I say no?
Because I really want to see how it works. This is an incredible vantage point. And he goes,
she goes, yeah, sure, he'll understand. Sure. And he did, I didn't go down, he did invite me back.
But when, so I think it was Cameron Diaz was hosting that night. And my buddy Isaac,
who you guys met, texted me during the show to say,
are you with SNL?
Cause you can hear me laughing.
Because that microphone was right above my head.
But they had, but the,
then every time I've gone back though,
it's just, I marvel at it.
It just feels to me like exactly what TV was like,
you know, 50, 70 years ago,
even at the beginning of television,
that mad rush between breaks for all the changes and
So for me, that's amazing. Our history with SNL is that Dave Chappelle
actually signed his Netflix contract the night he hosted SNL after the election and
We had been talking to him for well over a year and he said at the show we went to this to the and they said my
Contract is signed and sitting on the seat.
So he just signed it,
set it on the seat and went out and hosted the show.
That was a pretty change in thing.
That's funny.
Very cool.
Yeah. And then, and then from,
and I've gotten to know Lauren over the years
and I'm just, I hugely admire.
It's hard to say that you get to become friends
with someone you were so idolized like that.
But I count
him as a friend. And we were going to last year be co-honored by this organization called
Pan America. And because of the writer's guild strike, it got kind of nasty and they had
threatened to boycott it and all that kind of stuff. So I pulled out of it. But in between
hand, there was all kinds of controversy
about whether or not Dave Chappelle could introduce me
at this thing and on and on.
So I sent him a note and said,
hey, I'm sorry, I can't be there.
I didn't want to ruin it for you.
And he calls me and says,
to have the hard part of thankless jobs
is nobody thanks you.
That's a solid word. That's very, very good. is nobody thanks you.
That's a solid. That's very, very.
That's a surprisingly good lord, didn't you think, David?
That's and that's a good lord.
As we call him Lordisms, there's that's a we'll add that to the bunch.
Yeah, he's quite a character around the worst part of thankless jobs.
Yes. No one thanks you.
The minute the minute you are huge, you will
feel yourself being less huge.
And show this. Who is he? Underestimate water. I think that was all in my favorite.
Don't underestimate the value of water as he's pulling a giant thing. I think I got, I think he
said it to mine too. And he always always drinking a lot of water.
Everything out of his mouth is, you know,
what he is is that type of person,
he's that type of person that takes a really big idea
and distills it down, which is a sign of intelligence.
I think to the guest, you think going to the show
and then staying at the party after,
till like at for 50 years.
Fuck, I can't do that. I can't.
Another gigantic highlight for me with the show was 25 years ago,
me and that same group of buddies that you guys had met.
We went to Aspen for the comedy festival, HBO comedy festival.
And you guys did the 25 year of SNL.
Oh, wow.
That was the first, it was felt like an SNL convention.
There was so many of the people.
Yeah.
And that's the first time I ever met Farley
First time I met Samar
Wow
Wow, that was that was what the original cast all the way up to Will Ferrell's cast were up. Yeah, like the bleachers
That's where I did Bert Landcaster and Kirk Douglas. Yes. Yeah, you killed a lemon. Yes. Yes
So that was a funny amount. I can't imagine was like to try to get a line in on that stage.
Oh, I don't think we talked far, by the way, Farley had a rough go with it on that one.
It was oxygen problems, I think Norm needed oxygen and it was a tough.
Remember that awkward moment, sorry to interrupt, but remember, David, the moment where Mike,
it's a lead discussion and he goes, it's like being shot, I always said it,
I, he said, I said it.
SNL is like being shot out of a cannon.
That was the analogy.
And then of course, Norman Norms,
for brilliance.
Yeah, I don't know, you have to be shot out of a cannon
to know the difference.
I don't know, I don't know if it's exactly like being shot
out of a cannon, more like people pretending to be other people or something like that,'t know, I don't know if it's exactly like me, shout out of a can, more like people pretending
to be other people or something like that, you know,
and Mike turned red.
Very norm, Mike.
Very norm, we miss him, but.
You know, I miss norm, no one else in my life,
you know, most people go through their whole life
trying not to look crazy.
And when Norm got sick, he went out of his way
to make you think he was crazy instead of sick.
Yeah, interesting.
Your sick wasn't funny. I got mad at him.
I look at my old text.
I'm like, I was going, Norm, you can't say you're coming to dinner and then just
flake out.
He's like, David, there's COVID.
I go, we've gone over.
I'm sitting 20 feet away from you in my house.
It's you.
We already agreed it's fine.
Then he goes, it's an epidemic.
And then a week later,
when are we having dinner? I go, why are you keeping this?
Your episode with Norman is an act of jazz. It's not even a conversation.
I don't know if I told you that. I've never seen it, but I heard that whole year I heard
about that. And I was like, what did we do on that show that was so funny? I think you that I've never seen it, but I heard that whole year I heard about that and I was like what did we do on that show that was so funny
I think you were there and I think
Yeah
The crew was like walking in front of you guys
This thing goes by
Are we in a construction site?
Anyway, Ted, let's let Ted always
gotta get the reshoots and the real.
Thank you for coming on, Ted.
Thank you.
We appreciate it.
We appreciate it.
Podcasts, a fan of both of you.
Love you both.
Love you both.
See you soon, hopefully.
Alright, miss you buddy.
Take care, bye-bye.
Thank you.
Take care.
This has been a presentation of Odyssey.
Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a
review, all the stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your
podcasts. Flying the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade,
Jenna Weiss, Berman of Odyssey, Charlie Finan of Brillstein Entertainment and
Heather Centauri. The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzmann.