The Always Sunny Podcast - The Gang Hits the Road
Episode Date: January 30, 2023You scratch, you sniff, you taste....
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Oh, man, oh, you got your Wrexham scarf on.
I put my scarf on.
You know, you got to enjoy the wins.
I just watched a Wrexham win.
We're top of the league.
We're in first place and that feels good.
And I know that's, I know this isn't a Wrexham podcast,
but you know, you got to, you got to enjoy the more.
It's good to be number one.
It's good.
It feels good to be in first place.
You know what else feels good?
Watching this episode.
Maybe my favorite episode thus far during the rewatch.
Really?
Truly.
Up there for me too.
Yeah, yeah.
It's up there, probably one of my top 10 episodes
of all time.
Same.
It's like I say that a lot, but yeah.
You want to do us an intro, Meg?
Yeah.
Sure.
We're getting right into the episode.
None of you are coming in hot?
You know?
Well, let's see.
No, let's get the fans what they want.
They want to hear us talk about the episode.
This is a good one to talk about.
We're in the process of working on the show.
So it feels like it's very present in our minds
how things happen and how they happened.
Let's get into it.
Well, I mean, unless we want to give some people
some context is where we are.
We are one day out from production on season 16.
It's always sunny in Philadelphia.
We start filming tomorrow and we're finishing things up.
We're a little behind on a few things, but.
No more than other seasons.
We usually have one script or two that we're like,
OK, we're going to be working on those in our trailers.
That's right.
That's right.
We got it there.
That's where we're at.
It's fun watching an episode like this, though,
because it gets me excited to act,
to transition into acting on the show.
It's a good, like, they can feel like this.
We're doing something right.
Great.
Very inspiring.
Very inspiring.
Very inspiring.
Maggie, let's tell the audience what the episode's about.
So season five, episode two is what we're discussing today.
The gang hits the road.
It aired on September 24th, 2009,
was written by Charlie and Glenn and directed by Fred Savage.
The gang tries to expand their horizons
by going on a road trip to the Grand Canyon,
but they hit a few speed bumps along the way.
Oh, more than a few, right?
Charlie, I remember writing this episode with you.
It was the first year we were in these offices on the Fox lot.
However, we were one floor down from here.
We're on the fourth floor.
We were on the third floor when we wrote that.
We were in the exact office below the office
that we've been writing this entire season from.
And as all the creeps can tell, it's so inspiring.
The core is very inspiring.
And by the way, Meg put these up here
just to have something to break up the walls.
Otherwise, it's just a white room with windows,
which are nice, but sterile.
Very sterile.
But I like to start from a sterile place
before I get things dirty.
OK, OK.
You like the purity of the story.
Well, it forces you to go somewhere else in your mind,
and that is your imagination.
And that's where stories come from.
Yes, it is.
He's right.
He's right.
But Glenn, tell me about what happened.
Well.
We had a lot of fun.
We were having a lot of fun.
I don't remember exactly how specific and extensive
the break was, but I do remember that it came to us
very, very quickly.
And we had a draft, an entire draft of the episode
done by the end of the first day of writing,
which is outrageous.
It just happened very, very quickly.
And I don't even think we changed that much.
We always, you know, we went back through it.
And we, because it had only taken us a day,
we were like, let's just take another day
and go back through it and make sure that everything's
as good as it can be.
But it just flowed really nicely.
You can tell, like, watching it.
And my favorite thing is when we're writing
and you hit that thing where the writing is actually
doing the breaking for you.
So, like, you've done some breaking,
but you're coming up with things in how you execute a scene
that you're like, oh, we'll actually pay this off later.
So things that I imagined weren't in there as we were,
like, writing it.
I remember these kind of things coming up,
like probably like the P in the window joke and stuff
like that.
But yeah, I don't know if this one's nice.
Do you guys remember where all the fruit stuff came from?
Scott Martyr.
Yeah, yeah, so.
Oh, writer Scott Martyr.
Yeah.
Discovering that he, yeah.
It never had a blueberry, I believe.
He had never eaten a blueberry.
And we just couldn't believe that a person had never
tasted a blueberry.
It was a staunchie.
And that was just the beginning.
Then we really got into listing all the things
that he had never eaten, an apricot, a pear.
And it wasn't just fruit specific.
There were other vegetables.
It was other, like, certain kind of, like a chicken sandwich.
She was very sweet. Very, very common foods,
like extremely common foods, not rare foods,
not exotic foods, very common foods.
Yeah.
And he had not had a number of them.
It wasn't, you know, it's very, it's one thing when
somebody's like, I don't, yeah, I know it's weird,
but I don't like blueberries.
Okay, I get that.
Little weird.
Blueberries are delicious.
Never tried it.
Never even tried one.
Never tried them.
But he, but he, but every once in a while,
he'd bring in like smelling salts.
And he'd be like, let's do these today.
Yeah, sure.
And then he'd smell those.
He'd get that far in life without trying a blueberry.
Well, you know, that'll be a question for when we do
the Martyr and Richel podcast.
Yeah, let's say that for when he's not here today, right?
He's not here today, but they have agreed that they will.
All right, we'll bring them in.
Oh, thanks.
Oh, you are going to dane us with your presence.
Oh, will you?
All right, well, we've only come about his.
We've only come about his for 15 years, but sure.
You guys are missing fun conversations in the writer's room
with them, like, Roselle and I talked for an extensive
period of time about nitrous the other day,
which was fun, because I was going to go get some
for like a little outpatient procedure.
And he was like, oh, that's great.
Did you have the nitrous?
Yeah, I did.
And how was that?
It wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be.
I thought it was going to be strong and it was fine.
They were like, it feels like a warm blanket,
kind of like kind of sitting.
And it was good, but I don't think it
had the strength of the kind that Roselle is talking about,
which is when you just hop off of a, like, out of a can.
I have a balloon and a parking lot at a fish concert.
And then you basically go brain dead for 30 seconds.
Yeah, you go brain dead.
Everything just goes, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Yeah, you fall down and then you're like, yeah, that's what it is.
That's what I remember.
I remember there always being this, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
It's the sound of your brain dying a little bit.
It's the sound of the blood trying to.
But yeah, it wasn't as good.
But, you know, it's because it was administered to me
by a doctor and not a whipped cream can.
Not a four-year-old or another 14-year-old who had the cracker.
Yes.
Do you remember that was the thing that actually got
into the nitrous, was the cracking tool?
No, I don't know.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, the guy in the tank?
Then you didn't do whippets.
No, I did whippets.
I did whippets with the.
Oh, the big, you did the big nitrous tank.
I did, yeah, we had, we had.
Well, you know, you could buy the individual ones.
Oh, it was almost like the keg tap.
Whoever had the cracker is the person who had the tap.
That was the tool that would allow you to crack the thing open
and then fill up a balloon.
And it was just another 15-year-old who was in charge of the cracker.
I just know that I've got kids.
I just don't want to think about that for my kids.
I I'm happy to say I probably only did.
I could probably count on two hands the number of times
I actually did it, maybe three hands.
Sure.
Well, you hit a certain point where you realize, OK,
I'm going to stop doing that because I truly believe.
I don't even love the sensation that much.
It's not that great.
I'm just going to experiment with it.
And then I realized I'm actually killing myself.
And then there were the kids were like, I'm going to do this.
Every day.
And then you realize, well, they're
going to do lots of things every day.
And hey, look.
Speaking of things that make you pass out from the episode,
I did notice on this rewatch a very funny choice by Charlie
for when you guys light the wicker chairs on fire
and it like gasses you in the in the trailer
and you open up the thing.
And Charlie is just facing down.
We were laughing about that.
Like funny.
He made the choice to just like face the face directly
face down arms at his sides backwards.
As if you just like, yeah, we've always enjoyed that kind
of fall where you get knocked out instantly
and your arms are not you don't even stop yourself.
Your arms just at your sides.
Just I remember wanting to do it in a way that was like,
it seemed really believable that he made no effort
to stop himself, but also I remember being like, you know,
you got to wait for a good chunk of dialogue
before they open the thing and just be like,
this is uncomfortable.
This is straight away.
Yeah, straight down on knowing it would be funny
but it'll be a good bet.
The biggest laugh for me in that whole episode
is the Hibachi grill legs kicking up and sliding out.
Like I'm proud of the joke, like the writing of the joke,
but I'm really proud of the special effects team.
That's a pretty sweet duct tape rig.
You got going on the door, man.
Yeah, you like that tape the chairs down too.
So I know, I know, but you stopped at the grill
and that's got me confused.
Ran out of tape, actually.
Right, it's not going to slide through the crack.
It won't because I measured the crack
and the crack is smaller than the height of the grill.
We're all hooked up here, dude.
A shot got a beer.
Alcommon, nurse.
Sure, well, let's get it out.
Do you remember how hard it was for that to happen?
No. Oh, oh my God.
Yeah, we had to get filament to pull the legs sideways
and then have someone pull it straight out.
Now, but at the time we were very, very frustrated
and we had a great special effects team,
but for some reason this was the one that stumped them
because you had to get the timing exactly right.
So I remember exactly how this happened
because you guys were in the van.
Oh, sorry, also, yes.
You know what I do remember?
Also the time, and this maybe was what you're talking about
when you say timing because it wasn't like when to do it.
It was starting it slow and then speeding it up.
Like that was when I was like, do we yank it out?
And it's like, no.
Yeah.
Do we do it all slow?
No.
You start slow and you, it's like,
I've got to be like, it hits a bump.
So it's got to go, boom,
and then the legs have to collapse.
And the legs collapse at the same time.
It can't go one, one.
It doesn't look as funny.
It's got to go bump, bump, and then out.
And so we're thinking, well, we're in Hollywood,
but we know that at this point,
our show's a piece of shit and we don't have any money.
So we got to figure out, now again,
we've seen dinosaurs on screen in 1993
and yet we can't just get this goddamn hibachi growth
to just do what we needed to do.
They wound up having two special effects guys,
one on one side of the trailer,
one on the other.
They cut a hole through the van
and they pulled the string this way.
And then a third special effects guy
that pulled the thing out.
That's right.
And you know why?
Because the van, the tightness of the van
is such that we couldn't put two guys in there
to pull on the strings to have the legs come out.
So we had to drill through the,
from the outside.
From the outside.
And originally what they did was
they fed the wire this way, right?
And then threw a little like snake hole out.
So the way that they had, without drilling a hole.
So all three guys were on the other side of the truck
and pulling, but how do you get the timing right
where the tension isn't this way?
The tension is this way,
but then eventually it's got to pull
like through a pulley system.
But it's also funny.
It was so complicated.
There's so many different ways.
Until they got it.
Until they got it.
And then we're like, thank God we spent the time on it
because it's like a huge work of it.
Yeah, you wouldn't think that it would be that difficult,
but it's also like,
because we have a very specific
sort of like timing in mind of what we want to happen.
It's like, as you said, it's got to fall,
both legs have to collapse first.
And then there's that'd be like the tiniest micro beat.
And then it just, you know what I mean?
And then you guys have such a funny reaction.
It's just like, staring at it.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like a very muted reaction.
It's just sort of, there's the air of like,
yeah, that was, we could have seen that coming, baby.
Yeah.
I love the, I love the attitudes
throughout the entire episode.
It's always fun when characters are on the same page
or excited and happy and having fun.
So Dennis and Frank, when they first get back there,
how excited they are and how on board they are.
And there's very little fighting.
There's very little argument.
It's more, they might have a little disagreement,
but Dennis is up for anything and Frank's up for anything.
That's fun.
Same thing when Charlie got back there as well.
Everybody's excited.
I miss playing those colors as Dennis.
I miss like playing the, you know, the like,
you know, still calm and still everything.
And still kind of narcissistic and full of himself,
but like, I don't know, not always angry.
It's a simple story.
It's a simple story.
There's no big theme we're trying to jam in there.
There's no like, well, they're on a road trip,
but it's really about, you know,
we're really saying it's about X, Y, Z.
No, they're trying to go on a road trip
and they're unable to pull it off.
And that's it.
So it allows for those grounded moments
because people can relate to it, right?
We don't have to, we don't have to sort of invent a motive
for why people would want to go on a road trip.
Like people go on road trips.
So, yeah, so then, then we have nothing but free reign
to then be like, okay, well, what are the funny things
that happen that keep them from going on this road trip?
Yeah.
So yeah, it doesn't, it wouldn't make sense
to have any like heightened.
One person that we've talked about on the podcast
in the past and now people can put a face to his name
is Chacha.
So Chacha who we've mentioned in the podcast
was Danny's friend who may or may not have been
in a certain organization that may or may not
have existed somewhere in the Northeast
part of this country.
We can't say for sure, but we were,
it could be that he possibly was a member
of one of those types of organizations.
Like the American Legion, like what are you?
Yeah, whatever, the Carpenters Union,
something like that.
I ain't saying shit.
And now the thing is that Chacha has since passed.
So we're clear to talk about it in many different ways,
but none of the ways that we'll get us beaten up
or murdered. Ideally.
Chacha was the best.
He was the best.
Was he a boxing promoter for Tony Danza?
And that's how Danny met him?
Yes.
Yeah, Chacha and I had a night where he took me
to a fight at Madison Square Garden.
What?
Yeah.
When was this?
Around that time, I guess.
I was in New York City and it was,
I don't know.
It was something like we were shooting in Philly
and then there was a big fight coming up
at Madison Square Garden and I was talking to Chah about it.
I think it may have even been
when we were doing that episode.
And he was like, yeah.
He was like, I could get a scent that I fight.
And I was like, let's do it, you know what I mean?
So I went to New York and I stayed in New York
and I went to his, he had a, he had a coffee,
like a cafe bakery.
On Mulberry Street?
On Mulberry Street.
Yeah.
Little Italy.
Little Italy.
Yeah, it was like a July thing.
It was a July, it had pizza, it had lots of things.
Yeah, lots of stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Had coffee, had calzones.
Whatever you wanted, you could get there.
And everybody knew Chah Chah.
Everybody knew Chah.
And so, you know, I went there and I met him there.
You know, he fed me, gave me some espresso.
Then we went to the fight together
and had a blast and, you know,
everybody at the stadium knew him.
Like everybody, you know,
and we just had a really, really fun night.
And I think very fondly on Chah Chah,
cause he really, he really like hosted that night.
It was, and it was, it was really cool.
He was a great guy.
Well, those scenes down in the Italian market
are like, they feel very alive.
There's a lot of pedestrians.
And, you know, we didn't like pay for like 200 extras that day.
We were just filming down in the market.
And, you know, I'm sure we had like 15 or 20 people.
Maybe we, you know, had them crossed.
That was the Italian market, to be clear.
Yeah.
In Philly, yeah.
But like we, that was still at a time
where I think we could shoot
and we wouldn't draw a huge crowd, right?
Yeah.
2000, yeah.
Season five, not yet, right?
Yeah, we could still get away with it.
Although I do remember people yelling to Danny
when we were driving around the box.
Okay, yes.
When we hit the guy with the, with the,
by the way, the stunt guy nailed it
going over the bike.
Yeah, he sure did.
We'll start, we'll start that from the beginning
cause that was a really fun moment in the shooting of the show
that we reference a lot
because it was very specific.
We were going around a big loop.
So when we were shooting, we would just,
cause I had to throw it at that guy's head.
And I think I missed like three times,
but we had to do this giant loop
around this one neighborhood in Philly,
where we would just go up and down the street.
And the car's being towed, right?
And the car's being towed.
So I'm not really driving, it's a, yeah.
Right, and so we have a camera car shooting us.
And then, and so we're just going around
and we're passing the same houses and the same people.
And no one knew our show,
including people in Philadelphia,
but everybody knows Danny.
So the neighbors were out on their stoops
and every time we would pass by,
they would yell out at us.
Hey Danny.
Hey Danny, come on over Danny.
I'll make you some zitty.
And then we'd be passing and then we'd turn around
and we'd come back around.
And then just more and more people.
Hey Danny.
Yeah.
And we had a joke, running joke in the car
about it getting more extreme.
Like, oh Danny, come over and let me tie you up
in the bay to prove you out.
Danny, let me wear your face, Dan.
I got a spot in the-
I got a spot in the-
Danny, only take off the foot.
Come here, Danny.
Danny, just a little piece of your body.
Danny, for the basic, for the trophy room.
Danny, Danny, I'll make you into a zitty.
Come here, Danny.
Danny, can we eat you for dinner tonight?
Danny.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, everybody wanted a piece.
Everybody wanted a piece of Danny.
They wanted a piece, you know?
Who could blame him?
Who could blame him?
And then also, if you remember from that shoot,
one of the trucks got hit by lightning.
One of our camera trucks got hit by lightning.
No, I don't remember that.
Oh yeah, we were shooting down there
and there was a thunder storm, a lightning storm,
out of nowhere.
I remember it was a huge thunder storm.
Yeah, and you don't really know where to go
because we don't have a set.
So the neighbors were like,
you can come into our house, really?
No, no, no way.
We'll take our chances with the lightning.
Yeah, we'll take our chances with the lightning.
We go up into these giant metal trucks,
which of course are grounded from the tires,
but still it's terrifying.
And like the trailer's like shaking and whatnot.
And then one of our trucks got hit by lightning.
Jesus.
Oh, fuck.
What happened?
Did it like blow up or like?
No.
Nothing.
Maybe that's why this episode is so good,
because it's like infused with the power of...
Strung by lightning.
The lightning.
It's infused for the power of Zeus, right?
The power of Zeus came through us with this episode.
A lot of Philly stuff.
Yeah, did you shoot this,
other than the scenes in the bar and in front of the bar,
did you shoot all of it in Philly?
No.
Like the gas station scenes and stuff?
No, gas station was LA.
That was in LA.
Not far, I believe, not far from the Paddy set.
We had a loop in downtown that like could really pass
for Philly, because it was just very urban and...
Yeah.
Not a lot of palm trees or anything.
Like when Dee runs up and chases you guys,
like that was in LA.
Yeah, that was in LA.
That was downtown LA.
Yeah.
And I wonder,
because we haven't been shot down there a while,
like the more and more we go down in the neighborhood.
It's nicer and nicer.
It's nicer and nicer.
We can't even shoot outside of that Paddy set
very much anymore,
because I went from Judgment Night to like,
you know, hipster night.
Do you remember like in the early years
where whatever that,
we might have talked about this in the podcast,
the guys across the street.
Oh yeah.
Would just lay on their like car horn
when we were filming.
And our line producer had to go over
and just give them cash.
It was just a...
It was just a story.
It was just a shakedown.
I kind of see both sides of that.
I mean, there was shooting on my street,
like two weeks ago,
and I pulled up and they were like,
you can't go up there.
And I was like, no, I live up there.
And they're like, sorry, you can't go through.
And I was like, I'm sorry.
You're telling me I can't go to my house.
And they're like, yeah, they're filming.
And I was like, I'm going to drive.
And if you get in front of my car,
I'm going to run you over.
Like, what the fuck?
And of course it's like some poor PA who's I've done.
Yeah, yeah.
Some of my kids, the first day on the job,
like I was told not to let anyone out the street.
I really want to work in TV and...
Totally.
But like the guys across the street from us,
they had had a business.
And we would just shut the street down
or we would do like intermittent traffic control.
They had a business like Cha Cha had a business.
Cars come in, cars go out, who's cars they have?
I don't know.
But the horns fucking work.
So give me cash.
But that one time in particular, I remember,
and they started to blare music out of their cars.
And it was because they were told that they couldn't bring,
they had some importing, exporting business.
That's right, actually.
Somebody told them they couldn't bring their trucks in.
Yeah.
And they were like, this is our business.
You just, you can't shut down the street
unless you pass.
And so we paid them.
Yeah, I see it from their perspective.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a middle ground.
I think what you're saying is there's a middle ground.
In that case, there is a middle ground.
There is a middle ground.
All right, who here hates cooking?
Oh God.
Who hates cooking?
Thank you, overrated.
It's just, it's so much time and energy.
Hours of shopping and prep and cooking and cleaning.
Also, it's just not economical.
Well, check it out, Charlie.
We're sponsored by Factor,
America's number one ready to eat meal kit.
They ship fresh, nutritious meals made with high protein.
Love that.
I love protein guys.
I love Factor, especially the protein plus meals
because they are extra filling and great for my busy days
where I want a quick and healthy meal.
Well, that's a huge boom when we're busy on set.
You know, we're just kicking off production
and there's hardly ever time to fit a meal into your schedules.
Well, we do have a caterer.
You're aware of this, right?
Well, yeah, I mean, you know,
but the caterer, he's not dietitian approved.
Factor is, you know, plus it only takes two minutes
to heat up versus trudging over to the truck
and, you know, waiting in line.
Yeah, who's making you wait in line?
Well, I'm not, I cut to the front, but.
Yeah, you don't wait in line, right?
You don't wait in line, right?
No, but I'm saying in theory.
Be like Glenn.
Don't let anyone stand in the way
of your meal time ever again.
Head to factormeals.com slash sunny50
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So that's code sunny50 at factormeals.com slash sunny50
to get 50% off your first box.
What else from this?
Oh, runaway train.
Well, okay, let's performance in the runaway train scene.
And your performance is getting the piss in the face.
It's very real.
Yes, yeah, you play that.
Well, I really got slapped in the face
with apple juice or something like that.
Yeah, so you were feeling the actual frustration.
Now that kid's gotta be 62, 63 years old now.
Shannon McCain, I'll look it up.
What's his name?
Shannon McCain.
Shannon McCain, what's he up to?
Has he been working on old Shannon McCain?
He is 38 years old now.
Wow, that's crazy.
Did he get into the porn?
He is still regularly working.
Good, he didn't have to get into the porn like D-Fox.
I know with that tiny little body of his.
With that tiny little body of his.
With that tiny little body of his.
So that means he was 24 when he did it.
Did the episode, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I think runaway train was your pitch.
I feel like maybe I remember working on that
and it might have had some different song or something.
That wasn't in the break?
Maybe it was.
Maybe it was something you had in the room
because I feel like you liked that song.
I liked, well, I like that.
I remember that song being on the summer of probably 1990,
I'm gonna say four.
Sure.
The summer of 1994.
That sounds right.
That song was on constantly.
And the video, they would play the video
and it was all about like runaways.
And then it became a whole marketing campaign
where they were talking about how many lives the song saved
because people were, the runaways were inspired
to like call home or come home.
This was like all engineered by MTV.
And I thought, man, it just seemed like such a scam
to sell records as if there were like kids on the street
that would hear that song and be like, oh, you know what?
I'm the runaway train.
I'm the runaway train.
What I'm gonna do is get back in touch with my family
who's definitely looking for me.
That's why I ran away in the first place.
They're really.
Right, they're really upset.
That's the nuclear family that I need to be.
I love that she's like,
you need to hear the songs, it's got a message for you.
And then she cannot remember the words.
It delivers all the emotion, but few of the words.
I also liked that she immediately is like invading the space.
Like she's gotten drunk like so fast.
And she also mimes, like you get, she starts moving
as like before she reveals the piss jar.
She does a couple of movements,
which like on second viewing, you're like,
oh, that was her zipping on at the end.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I got something you need to hear about.
I'm gonna suck it.
Just be the earth and dealin' with the pain
Run away, train, never come back
Run away on a one-way track
Seekin' like I should be gettin' somewhere
Soon that I'm over here more than ever
Run away, train, staring at the sidetrack
Run away, train, never come back
Run away, train, running in my face
Run away on a one-way track
What is that?
What's that piss?
And it's an open mouth jar.
Yes.
Like, so how did she...
That's a bunch of dudes right there.
How does it work?
And then being like, hey, just figure it out.
I don't know.
It's just a good aim.
I wonder how many of her cars we wrecked.
So we wrecked the first, the blue one,
and Mac and Charlie die,
and then this one gets stolen.
And then we wrecked the one
at the McPoyle wedding massacre.
I drive it into the pole.
I think it's a purple PT Cruiser.
Yep, yep, yep.
Is that it?
There's a few.
And that's maybe it.
I don't remember.
Three's a lot.
Three's a lot of cars.
Three's a lot of cars to drive.
Three's a lot of cars to drive.
Yeah.
Do you remember anything else
about the writing of this episode, Charles?
Nope.
Me either.
You guys, did you have all that?
What I like about it is that there's just the simplicity
and just mixing up the pairings.
Like somebody goes back into the back
and then somebody moves to the front seat
and like that kind of energy of the story
is just really funny.
Yeah, yeah.
But was that planned?
Or did you guys just be like,
generally they're going to be on a road trip?
I mean, I think it's planned.
It's so long ago.
It's really hard to remember.
Yeah, it's hard to remember.
I mean, I don't think we would have gone into writing it
without there being sign language.
I don't think we broke them in the detail
that we break the stories now.
Like sometimes we did and sometimes we didn't.
Sometimes we're like, they go on the road trip.
This happens.
They go to the farmer's market.
We do the blueberry run.
The car gets stolen.
You know, like.
The ocular pat down.
I think you improv on that on the day.
Possibly.
I mean, I remember Roselle pitching the sheriff of Patties.
Okay.
So that was probably the sheriff of Patties.
Because it comes back in the last scene.
Yeah.
The ocular pat down.
Thank joke.
I'm pretty sure you came up with though.
Yeah, I did an ocular pat down and I cleared him.
I'm sorry.
I'm saying that I did an ocular assessment of the situation
garnered that he was not a security risk.
And I cleared him for passage.
Occular pat down.
What the hell are you talking about?
I'm talking about breaking down the security situation,
clearing an individual and making it safe for passage.
How exactly do you view yourself within the context of our group?
The sheriff of Patties.
I can't have this conversation.
The sheriff of Patties.
I want to unfold this thing.
I'm going to pass out.
Well, my favorite part of that whole thing is setting that up.
And then in the end, finding out that Charlie is also very much aware
of the process.
And he's cleared him.
I thought we were clear.
Yeah.
I thought that cleared him.
He said the kid was clear.
So I figured.
Yeah.
We're good.
Coming off the hills of us having no idea how you view yourself.
The funny reveal that we've had these conversations many times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I also liked the little round about the glaze on the chairs.
You guys being that much spend some sort of real quick glaze.
Yeah.
Poison glaze.
Yeah.
Cause we passed out.
Instant.
Instant.
I don't remember how we did.
I guess we just had a smoke machine in there.
I don't remember how we did that.
Yeah.
I think it was just that.
I think it was just that.
I don't think it was anything more complicated than that.
Thank God we didn't have to actually set anything on fire.
Because they send the whole fire department when you do that.
Fucking light a candle these days on set.
And the whole fire department's got to show up.
It's got to show up.
I tried to cook my husband dinner on Friday and the fire department called.
Why don't you just set off an alarm.
I did.
I set off our own fire alarms and apparently we have a we have it somehow connected to
like the security alarm and then they they called us in the fire department called.
And so two very embarrassing conversations with my husband just had to be like, no, my
wife's just cooking.
Yeah.
It doesn't happen very often.
That's probably why we haven't been.
So they actually came by now.
No, no.
They did.
Oh, they did.
Okay.
All right.
Well, so I had an experience.
I don't know.
It was maybe about a year ago and we were we had like a busted pipe in our landscaping
and we had like expanded our landscaping.
So I knew where the landscaping the controls were for turning off all the water that goes
to the landscaping, except there's this is like a new section of landscaping that had
been done and it wasn't on the same pipe.
So I was like, I don't know how to stop this and there's fucking water geysering.
So we had to call, we had to call, I don't know if we called, I guess we've called the
fire department or somebody.
Yeah.
I guess we did.
But they, they show, you know, we were just like, just like, why do you always have to
show up in a fire truck?
Like, you know, it's like, it's like midnight, you know, the whole, waking the whole neighborhood
up.
The siren got like blaring, honking the horn, like lights blowing up, you know, or let's
like, oh man.
Firemen.
Firemen.
Oh, we have to.
By the way.
And I, I, these guys got out, I, it was, there's nothing more emasculating.
It's so massive.
Hey, buddy, you want us to turn your water off for you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He wants to come in there, take care of your wife too.
Yeah.
You can turn her water on.
Every single guy was, was like six foot three on average, you know what I mean?
Like no one was below six foot three.
It was like six to foot three and above every single guy.
I'm not kidding.
You looked like he could be a male model.
We got the calendar shoot right after this.
So it looks like it.
Yeah.
So I noticed, I noticed a major difference when I first moved to Los Angeles with the
police force.
I noticed the, the LAPD and California State, the highway patrol, those are some big people
and in shape people, even, even if the women aren't large, they seem like they're in very
good shape.
And all the cops I knew in New York and Philly.
Yeah.
Fat as hell.
Yeah.
Not really or skinny, but like never like, not in like the kind of California shape.
We're.
Yeah, right.
These are California firemen and.
Yeah.
Policemen, right?
Yeah.
They're coming.
Correct.
Right.
Just coming straight from the gym, like hitting the gym at 4am every single morning.
Yeah.
I mean, cooking, cooking, you know, sticking to a, a paleo diet down there at the, at the
firehouse.
Right.
Cooking everybody chicken and vegetables.
Let's lay off the rice guys.
We've gained a few LBs.
When we show up to these people's house, we really got to make the men feel small.
That's our primary goal here.
Right.
Putting out fires.
Absolutely.
Every time.
If we can.
More important than that though.
Yeah.
We've gained a lot of firemen and emasculating the man.
That's why they became firemen in the first place.
Right.
Yep.
That's right.
I think you're absolutely right.
Let's go with that.
I eat stickers all the time.
Was that I improv on the day?
Definitely.
I can't remember.
Definitely.
The whole thing.
Yeah.
It was pretty gross.
The stem and then the, in the core.
You didn't tell me not to eat the stem, dude.
Did you eat the stickers that are all over it?
Yeah.
It was gross.
Of course it's gross.
It's a sticker.
I eat stickers all the time, dude.
Oh my God.
This whole thing is a disaster.
I'm going back to the car.
We fought about that in the editing room.
Yes, we did.
Because we both were on the same page where you're like, I thought it was funny because
you improv to I eat stickers all the time and you were like, that is the dumbest thing
I've ever heard.
Was that me?
We're now establishing that Charlie eats stickers all the time and we're like, yes.
Okay.
Good.
You guys remember that too.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Look, I'll fully admit that there's just, and everybody's got a line, right?
Everybody's got a line.
I feel like it's earlier seasons, right?
So maybe the characters haven't gone as crazy yet, so you're still having the conversation.
Do or do they not eat stickers?
By season six and seven, we know that Charlie and Frank, and possibly sometimes maybe Mac,
eat stickers.
Sure.
Sure.
You eat contracts and all sorts of things.
Yeah.
There's wolf hair in your feces.
There's wolf hair.
I have season three.
Yeah.
That's funny stuff.
Yeah.
There's hard wolf hair, all inconclusive, of course.
The line is always changing and always, but we just had a conversation this morning where
Glenn was pointing something out that was like, I don't think this makes any kind of
rational sense, and Charlie and I are both like, yeah, I know.
There's part of me that just, like in those moments, I want to back down just because
I could just sense you guys being like, oh no.
Yeah, but we didn't fight back though.
No, you didn't.
We didn't.
We didn't.
I could feel the energy.
We were like, okay.
Let's see.
Let's see how we can figure it out.
Yeah.
But there is a tendency to want to just be like, well, come on, man, like we do crazy
shit all the time.
Why is it this thing?
But we each have one of those moments throughout the week where you're like, no, this is my
line and we can either tell the person they're being stupid or we can kind of figure out
about it.
By the way, I usually like to be like, do you guys stand behind, do you fully stand
behind this?
But if you do, and you guys are like, this is amazing, I fully stand behind it.
I still might fight back a little bit, but I'll eventually just be like, all right,
I'm just going to back off.
You know what I mean?
Because I don't feel like you do it that often.
It's just a noun then.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
I mean, it's like if the joke is really funny, you know, you probably get a lot of scare
about it.
I know, you know what it is?
It's actually the opposite.
It's when I'm like this, if it's really, really funny, I care less about how grounded
it is.
You know what I mean?
If it's making me, but that's my, me thinking something's funny or not funny, you know,
whereas you guys might find something funny that I'm like, I don't even think that it's
not only is that not funny, but it, but it also there's this not grounded in any sort
of reality that I can believe.
Yeah, that's it.
It's just the reality thing, right?
Yeah.
It's the sticker thing for you or the gun thing with Frank in the episode where he's
shooting in that thing.
We were like, it's just not that funny to me.
So I'm like, why are we bending reality for some, but it's funny to you guys and it's
funny to a lot of people in the audience.
So it's like, okay, it is what it is.
What about now?
Is the sticker thing funny to you now?
Nope.
Did you find it?
No.
Not that funny, but I can appreciate why.
I understand why other people think it's funny.
I just don't think it's that funny.
I mean, I think you don't buy that the guy would eat stickers all the time.
No, I buy that you would have eaten the sticker on the pair and that it tasted awful and that
you ate the stem and the seeds and all that kind of shit because you don't know how to
eat a pair.
Like I somehow that's okay with me, but this is the one step past that you say, like I
eat stickers all the time.
That means that means you're a man who looks at a sticker and goes, I'm going to eat that.
Yeah, probably just like a scratch and sniff sticker, but yeah, so that additional line
would have bought it back for you if he was like, what are you talking about?
Like, you scratch, you sniff your taste.
You scratch, it's like it's just scratching sniff since when it's scratching of a dish.
Scratch sniffing taste.
The ones with the bananas do taste like bananas.
Have you guys ever been to the Grand Canyon?
I have.
I have, yeah.
Have you seen it?
Never.
Really?
You've never gone?
I did a road trip once with our dog many years ago, our first dog, Arthur, and it was
two degrees when we got to the Grand Canyon and Arthur had to take a crap and I remember
like the steam coming up and like you just like squeeze one out, took a dump at the Grand
Canyon.
We stayed like a red roof in, you know, the old days.
The old days, right?
And looked at it and was like, this is really sad, but looked at it and was like, yeah,
sure.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I think because I'd seen things in books and on television so many times.
Yes.
Is it impressive?
Of course.
But there's something about this world that we live in now that you have access to things
so much.
I imagine seeing that for the first time when you're riding your horse across the country
and you're like, oh, shit, hole, big hole, we got a hole, big hole, big hole.
Could be the end of the world.
Not sure.
Yes.
This is where the world.
It is strange because I've flown over it so many times because that is the direct route
back to the East Coast.
And so you look at it from the sky and of course it's impressive, it's a massive gorge,
but because of the scale, because of the height, you're like, you can't really get a sense
of it.
And I'm like, I get it.
I had the exact opposite reaction.
I actually expected, well, maybe because my expectations were low, I fully expected to
not be impressed by it because it's seen so many pictures of it.
I'm like, well, I mean, it's a fucking hole in the ground, it gives a shit.
But whatever it was, we were on a road trip.
My girlfriend and I at the time, it was the early 2000s, and we were like, let's stop
by the Grand Canyon, great, went to the Grand Canyon.
We went to this one area where you could really stand really close to the edge.
And which is maybe a lot of it.
But I was absolutely floored.
To me, it gave me the feeling of being like, oh, I'm so small and insignificant in a way
that actually is kind of great.
And I found it really, I felt the same way.
Pictures of space do that for me, where you see how many galaxies there are, and you're
like, wait, we're one dot in one of these things.
I find that comforting.
The Grand Canyon, I was like, oh, it's nice.
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Have you guys ever hitchhiked and or picked up a hitchhiker before?
Yes.
Yeah.
Which one?
No, I think for me.
In New Jersey.
Hitchhiking?
In New Jersey, like, you don't know.
You picked one up or you were hitchhiking?
Many times.
You hitchhiked?
I have.
But not like a hobo across the country.
You know, like Jersey shore towns, like in shore towns where people are just going back
and forth to different, like, vacation spots, people will hitchhike all the time.
Okay.
I've hitchhiked many, many times.
I mean, through like entire summers back and forth.
And how many people did you, did you rob?
How many people did you get?
Zero.
I had zero negative, I got into a car accident one time with somebody who was, who I was,
I had hitched a ride with somebody who had been drinking and I should have said, maybe
I'll get out of this one.
I didn't.
And we got into an accident.
And any of these people, they try to talk you into putting your mouth on them.
I would have done it.
I mean.
Sure.
At the time.
At the time I would have done it.
And now is that because you just were so appreciative of them giving you a ride and you were like,
well, the least I can do is get my mouth on you.
I'm just, I'm just trying to get my mouth on anything I could.
I was.
Anything.
Well, not a dick, but that just wasn't my thing.
But like, yeah, I guess I'm, so you said you would have done it.
I'm thinking.
I'm thinking more.
No, I was picturing a man.
So interestingly enough, I didn't even go there.
I went right to a woman, a young woman asking me to put my mouth on her for a ride.
And that's never happened in the history of human history, right?
I think it's going to be a man that's going to be doing that.
I just, if I ran into Sizemore, maybe, but other than that, I'm not going to want you
to split him up like a coconut.
There's so many moments in this episode that, that had me chuckling.
I'm trying to remember.
I'm trying to name the states.
I thought was very funny saying East Virginia and West Virginia and North Virginia and
all that.
Yeah.
Some little things from my, well that, that the East Virginia, West Virginia, North Virginia
came from a thing that I swear to God, I was like 25 or 20, no, 23 and I was in New York
and I was looking at a map of the United States and I was looking at West Virginia and it
was like, as if someone had told me there was like a West California.
I was like, I just kind of, I'd forgotten about West Virginia.
I just, just because like, I'm like, what sports teams are like, you don't, you don't
hear about it.
There's a chunk of my life from like fifth grade when he learned the states to my adulthood
where I'd, I'd forgotten about West Virginia.
So I think that like that state thing was going in there, like make fun of that.
Also like the, her opting out for the cheaper radio situation was something that my parents
had done in my childhood.
Oh yeah.
Which I think I've said on this, were they, I had a Honda Accord 1980, well they had a
Honda Accord 1985 with no radio.
Just a little plastic plate that said Honda because it was cheaper to get the option with
no car.
And not even not a CD player, not a tape deck, no radio.
No radio man.
So I would ride around with a boom box.
Yeah.
Well, I think music is distracting when you're driving and therefore dangerous.
Yeah.
Also like they didn't like listen to like pop music.
Like occasionally like.
You could throw on a classical station though.
Yeah.
Right.
Like some NPR, the news was usually the news was on or someone would sit at a piano and
be like trying to fit like knuckle out a show pan piece or something.
I look at your parents and they look like the physical embodiment of NPR.
You know, like that's like it gets like NPR in human form.
Yeah.
Just they were, they were music theory people, but not like, not like rock and roll people.
So yeah.
So like, you know, my mom was just teaching music class from kindergarten to eighth grade.
My dad is teaching at the local college.
And yeah, music everywhere, but right not in the car, but I got music in the car.
So in high school, my buddy Sean Coulter had a male Jeep and he had, he had put a radio
in there that he'd sort of put in himself and the radio had a brand name was called
the Sparko Matic.
Now I bought the Sparko Matic off a Coulter and put it in my car where I had, it didn't
quite fit.
So you had to put like little pieces of wood in there just to kind of like get it to stay
in sweet.
And it worked.
So I went to, had it for like two weeks, went to one motel, six party.
Somebody stole the Sparko Matic, man.
The Sparko Matic, dude.
Oh, the Sparko Matic.
Of all things.
Oh man.
What a bummer.
You think that the absence of that, the hole that it left behind led to your hatred of
holes and why you weren't impressed by the Great Britain.
That's a good callback.
Because you were trying to be there.
Yeah.
It's trying to dub tail.
Tie it all together.
This is what Meg does.
Good tie up.
Why you're a big storyteller.
Yeah.
I did pick up on that I remembered in the conceiving of, or the writing of the episode.
I don't remember where it came if it was in the break or if it just came when we were
writing it was the French press, getting the French press at the Italian market.
Because that came from a very specific, I did a road trip from Alabama to Los Angeles.
My high school car kind of died on me.
And so I went back to Alabama and I bought my mom's car, like an old Lexus ES.
I was like, you know, driving across the country, you got to have, you got to have
coffee, right?
But the coffee at like gas, this was before there was a Starbucks at different exits,
right?
So the coffee, you could really only get coffee at like gas stations and stuff like that.
So I was like, I'm going to buy, I'm going to bring my own coffee grounds and bring like
just a little personal French press and I'll stop at the gas station, I'll fill up, I'll
go inside and I'll ask where the hot water is, you know, for tea and stuff, I'll just
go in the gas station and I would put my own coffee in the French press and I would fill
it with water.
Excuse me, sir.
Where's your hot water for tea?
You know, I don't know.
It's the glenious gland chair I've ever heard.
And yet it makes absolute sense.
It does, right?
It's definitely the thing that I would make, and at the time did make fun of you for and
would still make fun of you for, but also would love, I would love to enjoy a cup of
that coffee.
Well, exactly.
So it makes absolute sense.
It's just so particular, but it also is fantastic.
Yes, no, it is very, it is very, very glen.
You're absolutely right.
Adding as many steps to my life as possible.
You know what I mean?
Rob would have just sucked somebody off for a better cup of coffee, right?
Right.
He would have just guessed the lift across the country.
He would have let the guy drink an espresso and then sucked his coffee and got the caffeine
that way.
And that's when the show's at its best, like everyone's bringing stuff from their own lives
and you know, you get Martyr's blueberry story and like just every little thing's going in
there.
And then-
Do we do that anymore?
Is there anything, any piece of our life left?
That is the fear, right?
The longer you're in the business that you're like, do I live enough of a life too?
Oh, well, yes.
I've thought about this a lot.
Right to it.
I'm like, I need to just like take a year off and just like live, like refill, you know,
have stories to tell.
I don't have, you know, you know, if you're working all the time, you run out of stories
to tell.
In the writer's room, we very typically go, what do people do?
Like that.
And that question comes up.
What do people do?
What do people do?
What do people do?
What's a thing that people do?
Especially if you've been working together for so long and you already know what everybody's
parents did to fuck them up.
And that's what every writer's room is anyway, is like people trying to like mine their history
and try to figure out who they are and why they are like that and then put it like imbue
it into the characters.
We already know.
I don't know all the secrets.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know all the secrets.
Yeah.
Oh boy.
They've already gone to the show.
Oh boy.
Do you guys have any travel destinations still on your bucket list you'd like to see before
you die?
Anything you want to check out?
Before I die.
Maybe the Grand Canyon, Rob.
No, no, no.
I'm not really interested in the Grand Canyon as much.
It's pretty awesome dude.
I want to go to Africa.
I've never been to Africa.
Yeah.
I'd love to go to Egypt.
Yeah.
I would like to go to Egypt.
Yeah.
Definitely.
I want to see the pyramids before I die for sure.
I have a million but I want to go everywhere.
Just not right now, but at some point, at some point.
Well, the next trip we're taking is just right across the way to the stages.
Yeah.
You guys are going to live for the next few years.
We walked into the bar today and every season since like five or six.
I get a crazy sensation walking into that bar where it feels like you're home and it
feels like this place that you've lived in that in a weird way you also are the character
even though you're you.
I know this sounds psychotic, but like you've worked there for a long time.
Yeah.
If you click into something immediately stepping on that stage, maybe that's part of what
you're talking about.
You step onto the stage and you start to feel like you're becoming the character again
or something.
A little bit and you feel the history of how many years we've been working on that stage
and that set and in that bar.
There's also still the excitement, especially in the very beginning where everything's still
being put together and all the electricians are there and the construction people are
there and props are there and wardrobe is there and the A.D.s are there and there's
an energy to it.
Yeah.
It's all coming back together.
Maybe it's that, but to me it's like the floor and the bar and the space and certain
little triggers like that.
Yeah.
It's all the way back to the Herald Examiner where we kind of found the location and started
working on it the first time to all the years that we've been there to this weird like other
life that I've lived where it's like I've been, I've had a life, but I've also been
this person for a long time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's sweet.
I love it.
It's like.
Well, you could really see the dust in the air though, couldn't you?
Do you guys see that?
You guys pick up on that?
That's of course where my brain goes.
Too dusty.
I walked on the stage and I was just like, what am I breathing?
That was my first thought.
Your first thought was like, you know, there's so much history here.
So it's such a more, it's a much more healthy thought.
Well, you know, I feel that way about movie sets, the way you feel about the Grand Canyon.
The magic is there for you on a movie set.
The magic is there for me in a false reality.
So is it better?
I don't know.
I'm not sure.
I looked at the Grand Canyon.
That's all on dust.
who said it?
Let's go home.
It's always so good.
Don't tell him to come here.
Don't tell him now.
No.
I'm down.