I Don't Know About That - Improv feat. Matt Walsh

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

Jim knew a little bit about improv, but not nearly as much as one of the founders of UCB, Matt Walsh (@mrmattwalsh). ADS: BETTERHELP: Visit BetterHelp.com/IDK today to get 10% off your first month ROCKETMONEY: Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/IDKAT

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Around New Year's we get obsessed with how to change ourselves instead of just explaining how we really are and what we're doing right. Therapy can help you find your strength so you can ditch extreme resolutions and make changes that really stick. Celebrate the progress you've already made. Visit betterhelp.com slash idk today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash idcom. Do you ever feel like money is just flying out of your account

and you have no idea where it's going? Well, I know it's on all those subscriptions, so I used Rocket Money to help find out what subscriptions I'm actually spending money on. It was eye-opening, and I had to cancel the ones that I didn't want anymore. Stop wasting the money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions

by going to rocketmoney.com slash IDKAT. IDKAT. That's rocketmoney.com slash IDKAT. Rocketmoney.com slash IDKAT. Roofs. Floors. Walls. Which one was invented first?

You might find out, and I don't know about that, with Jim Jefferies. I feel like I may have repeated myself. I think you've done that three or four times. Have I? Because I look around the room and I go, but it is, which one was invented first?

They reckon the roof? The roof. I would say roof. It was just pylons off to the side. That voice that you don't normally hear if you're listening on the podcast and you're not watching, it's the very talented, very funny Matt Walsh is with us and he's our guest today. Thank you.

He's here for the intro. I don't know what subject we're talking about, but I assume it's something comedy based because you'll know Matt from, he's many, many many i was just watching you the other day in old school and i like that that your character's name was walsh like i didn't even realize that i mean i was in the movie our mutual friend scott who wrote this yes but i've just gone ah fuck it walsh i think i was in some ways a muse for that character um i don't know maybe we're talking about comedy we could be talking about uh

abraham lincoln who knows you don't know what matt knows that's true we haven't done abraham lincoln so that's a good point what have we have we done ever i don't remember i don't think we have no i don't think that abraham lincoln said the think we have. Nah. I don't think we've done Abraham Lincoln. We've done the JFK assassination. No, we've done the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. No, sort of. We did Edwin Booth. Yeah. And John Wilkes Beale's brother.

Yeah, we didn't just talk about his acting career, did we? Lincoln was mentioned. He was featured. Let's quickly go through some plugs of what we're going on with. Yeah, I don't even know when this is coming out. Do we know? Yeah. I want to look up your date, yeah. I got it. I think you're done with these dates this week.

We've still come up to the 30th. Las Vegas, March 8th and 9th, you're going to be at the Mirage. We've just announced the LA shows. What time? When are they? I didn't see them. I'll tell you the other shows. What time? When are they? I didn't see this. Oh, well, they haven't been.

I'll tell you the other day. It's March 22nd and 23rd. You're going to be in Des Moines March 22nd. March 23rd, you'll be in Kansas City. Everything Go is on jimjeffries.com. That's not right, is it? That's the old one. That's the old one.

I'm just looking at your website. It's old. I've got to get on to them to fix that. I probably should have the proper dates with the real links. Don't go to his website for LA. Everything else is good. Everything else is accurate, we think. If you go to the Ace Theatre, because I've got ticket counts.

They've sold some tickets. So the Ace Theatre in LA, we're going to be lighting it up. And where are you, Forrest? Forrest is going to be in Australia. I am. Yeah, that just went on sale. April 24th and 26th, I'll be at the Factory Theater. It's in Sydney.

And the tickets are on my website now, or you can go to Factory Theater in Sydney. If you're in Australia, listen to us, obviously. That would be the best people to go out. And, yeah, two shows at 9.30, 24th and 26th. I'll be doing some shows in Melbourne as well. I don't have those yet, but just look at my website for that. But please go and get the tickets for Sydney now, 24th and 26th of April, Factory Theatre.

And you'll be doing a little secret show with me in Australia. Yeah, I don't know if you're going to let me announce that yet. We're not. Okay. But there's a secret show happening that I'm going to be involved in with Forrester. Something's going down. It's all happening. In Australia.

Don't call it a tour because it's not um secret well i i was you know it's a secret thing that we want to sell a lot of tickets for so get ready to buy them but not yet i'm interested i don't even know what it is yet yeah we'll text you we'll let you know when it's up if you want to come down australia if you want to come i've never been are you never been. You've never been to Australia? I haven't yet. I will get there, but no, I haven't been there yet. I think Veep was very popular in Australia. It gives me reason to go down there, shake some hands.

Hey, I was on the show Veep. Can I get a cup of water? You and Bacadal could go down there and have a good time. We have our mutual friend Dan Bacchanal who was also from Veep. Are you explaining that to me? No, I'm just the listener at home and the lesser known TV show

Legit. You're the audience surrogate today for us. The lesser known TV show Legit. Legit wasn't very big down there. Don't mention that. I'll tell you where Legit

was really big. Israel. Really? True. For some reason my sitcom did really well in Israel. It's the only place where in the street people are like,

how's Billy doing? And I'm like, all right. So it gives me cool. Legit wasn't big in Australia? That's fun. No, Legit was on,

it's okay now. It's one of those things that it's doing well in streamers and stuff like that. But at the time, it was just on cable, like the comedy network type of thing over there.

It never made it onto like a regular channel and stuff. But people who like it, like it. And, but in Israel, it was just on cable, like the comedy network type of thing over there. It never made it onto a regular channel and stuff. But people who like it, like it. But in Israel, it was like one of the top. I think it's all placement. I think it was on after the Big Bang Theory. And it's a little bit like searching for Sugar Man in South Africa, where the Israelis just think legit was big everywhere.

And I haven't got the heart to tell them different. Plus, they've got other problems. So I leave them be. We usually, after I introduce a guest, but we're promoting a lot of stuff now. I should promote what you're doing as well. You have the Vee Podcast, the Second in Command. Oh, yeah, here.

Rewatch that. You record right on this table, right? Same place. Second in Command. All Things Comedy. Why do we bother sending him the address? I feel silly now. I didn't send him the address.

Oh, I didn't. You sent it to him? We didn't. That's it. Also, you're going to be performing at Dad's Garage in Atlanta on February 29th. It's you, Tim Meadows, and others, right? Yeah, and others. Yeah.

And also in Boca Raton at the studio at Meisner Park march 1st and 2nd you can get tickets to both these and go to dad's garage.com if you're in atlanta february 29th or the studio at meisnerpark.com march 1st and 2nd in boca raton florida uh and on instagram mr matt walsh go check him out there we have a team we're going to tell it right now we'll tell you afterwards please yeah it's a good one it's a good one but we also don't want to tell it on the podcast. Well, yeah, but what are you doing? Secret shows. This is the whole podcast.

Secret conversations. Oh, okay. No, no, no. I don't need to tell it. The whole podcast is. We're interesting fellas. Let's just start. We'll start.

If you listen to more of this podcast, it's like an onion. It'll make you cry. Oh, that's how it's like an onion it'll make you cry oh that's how it's like an onion that thing makes you cry I don't think I've ever been told it's an onion

and it grows out of the dirt oh I have one thing that I can tell our listeners rugby we did an episode on rugby two episodes ago

three episodes ago four episodes something like that and it occurred to me and I was talking to Aaron after the podcast, I said, do you know more about rugby now? He goes, I actually don't even know really how the game's played because we never really said this is what rugby had.

I wasn't really sure what was going on. I hit up my rugby expert, Angus Usher, and he said, this is just a succinct description. Do it in the South African accent. He was from South Africa. I can't do accents. It would only be appropriate. An 80-minute game. I can't do accents. It would only be appropriate. An 80-minute game.

I can't do accents. 80-minute game of two halves. No, no, that's really bad. Yeah, I know. It's bad. That's like a New Zealander with a stroke. It's an 80-minute game of two halves where teams score points through tries, conversions, drop goals, and penalties.

The game is a full contact invasion sport with a large emphasis on field territory to allow for point scoring opportunities. Invasion sport that is popular in New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. There you go. Sounds about right. I also don't know if that helps you understand rugby better, but it's 80 minutes, two halves. It's like American football, but less breaks. Is American football an invasion sport? Yeah, same thing.

There's the end zones. So invading the end zone is what makes it an invasion. I thought it's like... No, because you're in Packers territory or you're in Dolphins territory. So is the board game risk and invasion? Actually, that's 100%. That's no doubter. Risk and rugby are very similar. Yeah, but I don't know if it's full contact.

I don't know if it's full contact. Oh, no, I didn't. Okay. Don't do Barbara and Lottie. All right. Let's get to our- I have characters. That's pretty good.

I have characters. Barbara and Lottie. You get impressions. I can't do it. All right, let's get to our show. You've already introduced Matt Walsh. Now- Now it's time to play... Yes, no.

Yes, no. Yes, no. Yes, no. Judging a book by its cover. Now, normally, Matt, I do things where I look on the screen. Trying to guess. And I look at their surroundings and see what type of a human they are. So I see you have some hooks on the wall

this isn't my home I know Matt Matt's a comic actor an improv guy so I'm just going to say it's comedy we've done stand up comedy

yeah we did famously which I didn't know much about. Yeah, no, you didn't know much about it and it was one of our... Because there's history and stuff. I know how to do it. But it's like, I don't reckon half the tennis players know how rackets are made. You know what I mean?

They just get on with the swing. You know Wayne Fetterman? Yeah. Yeah, that was our... You know he wrote a book on stand-up, so he was our expert for stand-up. Oh, perfect. And at the end, you already know we have a dinner party fact, right? I mentioned it to you, but we didn't really discuss it. We have a thing at the end

we call dinner party facts, and we usually ask our expert to tell us something obscure or interesting about the subject that other people might not know. You could probably pull something off. Yeah, yeah. And it's always... We've had some really interesting ones,

like Dracula and Frankenstein were invented on the same day at the sameock. Yeah, yeah. And it's always some, we've had some really interesting ones like Dracula and Frankenstein were invented on the same day at the same party. Yeah. Right? Like that's an interesting one. Just things that you can say at parties are interesting.

And so we go to Wayne and we go to Wayne and we said, what's your dinner party fact? And he didn't think Or stand-up comedy. He didn't think it had to be on his subject.

Yeah. He thought it was just some interesting fact and he went, do you know, out of all the slavery in the world america only took in 10 percent wow i think it was there's 12 million slaves and only 100,000 went to the united states and we were all sitting there like and he goes and i don't know what to do with that fact and then i saw him at the improv like a week later he goes that was bad i know it's hilarious like people have mentioned it to us that'll change the dinner party that one

that'll totally like if i ever go to a dinner party i'm ready i'm good to go i'm gonna lead that i've used it it's worked so now when i and I didn't mean to apologize, but now with our extras, I always say, and it's got to be on the subject. I always say this when I'm talking, and on the subject. So anyways, that's at the end. So comedy. Improv. We're going to be talking about improv, improv comedy, yeah.

Improv comedy. I would like to do improv comedy. I've never done improv comedy. I just did my first ever show at the UCB. We got Pino Noir. So you did improv comedy. You just said you didn't. Well, I was the guest.

I had to come on and tell a story, and I was quite nervous as well. But it is quite the Rush the old improv. But you were great. I did fine. No, you were great. We were talking about you yesterday about it. I have an improv story of some sorts. Before we go into the thing.

So Mindy Sterling, the great Mindy Sterling, played Dan Bacadal's mother in my sitcom. Okay. And so me and Dan Bacadal, we spent most of our days teasing Mindy, right? One of the fun things we would do is we would sit out the front of the window of her trailer and we would list all of the actors from best to worst

and we would and act like we were just having a chat and we'd never get to a name that's a good bet that's a really good bet anyway so Mindy I just improv the scene with her in the sitcom I go I was

having lunch with her and she goes, I teach classes. I said, oh, I've never done a class. I'd really love to do a class. I'd love to do one of your classes one day. And she said, she goes, I don't do beginners. She goes, I won't do beginners. I said, but we just fucking did a scene together. She goes, the rules are the rules.

And I'm like, but you're on my sitcom. At what stage at what stage do I get to leapfrog something nah she's bloody strict Mindy well I'm going to interest Matt again Matt Walsh is an actor comedian

writer and director that's how I do the show normally you've seen him in movies and television shows such as V, Bold School, Elf Step Brothers, The Hangover Due Date and Role Models Matt Walsh is also

a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade you can find him on instagram again at mr matt walsh listen to his podcast a veep rewatch second in command i'm sorry a veep rewatch and uh also again those dates uh february 29th march 1st and 2nd atlanta bocratone we'll put all that on so many plugs yeah we're done we're done with the plugs thank you yeah but i normally you know that's how we do it and i just okay i just felt like i have a professional i have ocd sure sure uh so what we're gonna do here is i already know what the first question i'm gonna ask jim a series of questions about improv uh and at the end of him answering those you're gonna grade him on his accuracy zero through ten uh and then what's

going on jack's trying to get an autograph normally you get autographs he was holding the book he was holding the book underneath the table looking at me like what are you really gonna do

I was waiting for the time but then it got weird so I guess now I have to do it the time is at the end of the podcast that's safe

for the whole podcast I'm gonna keep this here now in case I have to refer to something that's good I'm not gonna do well in this because I don't know all the rules.

I don't know. I've always enjoyed going to improv. I once saw this act. The first improv act I saw I was probably about 17 years old and they were touring Australia and they were called the the three Canadians

or four Canadians and there's like six of them. That was the joke. And it was Australia. Yeah. No, no, no. They were Canadians who were coming over. But it was the joke oh and it was Australia yeah then no no no they were Canadians coming over but it was the first time I'd seen the whole name of place name of this name of that I never never seen it before I thought it was very interesting all right so

I'm gonna ask let's start over here uh I'm gonna ask Jim a series of questions on improv at the end of him answering him you can grade him on his accuracy whatever you think zero through ten ten's the best okay uh Jackson a great amount of confidence answering it jack's gonna grade him on his confidence answering i'm gonna grade him on how hungry i am and uh and at the end of managing that i'll i'll add all those scores together and um there's three categories here jim you and jack have to do uh like 10 to 20 seconds of improv if you score 20 with the 30 jim and jack are on that road trip 11 through 20 jack works at the apple store and is helping jim 0 to 10 jim and jack are at a bar and jim is angry what are you talking about i had to jack that book he didn't even know what he's meant to do and then it was like and then he i was waiting and he looked at his bag and he grabbed a shaft he was all fucking dumb my whole life's improv i don't plan any of this of course

question one what is improv or improvisational theater um improvisational theater improv is when you improvise the word improvise comes from the latin to make up yeah um and improvisational theater is so it would be a theater show without a script that is um done from uh within a a certain level of structure so you can't just you can't just go out there and go roll around in your own shit that's performance art that's a different thing looking at never doing that one where she was just cutting material like this and they were like fuck good improv that

right so that's don't mix it up with performance art okay but it's it's a form of comedy within the

maybe not even comedy maybe maybe you could improvise dramas I don't know of that happening but that would be interesting yeah the West Wing was all improvised

I heard wow that's impressive I'm kidding I didn't know that I heard that happening but that would be interesting yeah the west wing was all improvised i heard wow i heard his schindler's list started off about a guy that worked at walmart and it really just anyway um so um you good yeah i think i think i said what is the earliest known use of improv like you know not use in discussion but like it was when mary went no i'm a virgin it's a lie she was just like yeah if i can virgin me and joseph was like are you sure pretty sure what about like organized like at a theater or not even just organized maybe it's a performance let's say

that i don't even know i don't know the answer. My answer for all questions, early entertainment, is Forrest. Korag. Vaudeville. Vaudeville, yeah. Vaudeville. There would have been something going on in Vaudeville. That's right. You say Vaudeville, too.

Vaudeville. He really pronounces that E. He always says Vaudeville. Vaudeville. Vaudeville. Vaudeville. Vaudeville. It's very respectful.

It elevates it a bit. Vaudeville. Vaudeville. My uncle came from vaudeville next to smallville who are the key who are key figures in the development of modern improvisational theater there's a guy that wrote all the rules that people dig and i think he's the bloke who started second city uh and i'm not sure of his name. Okay. And then apart from that, I'm going to give it to

Gene Wilder. Who is... I don't know if I'm saying their name right. It was meant to be a bean factory until he got involved with the script. And Heinz Beans. If you want to fart rapidly. I said the name already.

I don't know if I'm saying it right. Who is Viola Spolin? You're not going to know. Viola Spolin. She's the godmother of improv. Yeah. Probably right. What is the oldest running improv theater I'm

gonna I don't know I'm gonna say Second City in Chicago is the oldest sort of continuous running I would assume that's older than the Toronto one but I bet you're gonna give me something in New York or LA. What is the difference between short form and long form improv? Would be the length. It would be the big one. Probably. Yeah. Short form, long form would be something you could put into a scene

where you just keep going until it's forever. And short form is where it has to have a resolution at the end that's good what is theater sports um wow that's yeah okay i have a memory okay okay because i have a little bit of a prejudice against improv it's just a small one and i'll tell you why i'm sure i'll tell you what so So I really started out, I did a little bit of comedy in Australia, but my real sort of learning of comedy was in the UK. And the UK improv groups versus comedians, there's a segregation. The improv kids are always rich kids who can go to the Edinburgh Festival and they can lose a lot of money because they're rich kids.

And also, even if we go to the Goodies or Monty Python, which are sketch comedy people, but it's a similar world, and they probably did improv, they were all Cambridge footlights, right? So there's a certain poshness involved with improv, and working class is for the stand-up people. And then when I came to America, that doesn't exist at all. There's poor kids doing improv, and rich kids doing stand-up people and it hasn't and then when i came to america that doesn't exist at all there's poor kids doing improv and rich kids doing stand-up and poor kids doing stand-up and rich kids doing improv everyone's doing it but in britain there's definitely a divide what

was the question what are theater sports oh okay you had a memory you can share a memory yeah now here we go so i was in manchester and there was a group of stand-up comics who weren't getting into the man Comedy Store. And I wish them well. I don't remember any of their names. But they started a theatre sports group so they could get the Monday night spot at the Comedy Store in Manchester. And basically you could get on the team if you just asked.

They needed people. The team. The theatre sports team that competed or whatever. Anyway, they thought they got so good at it, right, that they went, we're going off to America and we're going to compete against the American teams. And I'm like, that's the equivalent of the Australian baseball team going, we're going to take on the Dominican Republic, right?

I'm like, oh oh don't do that you haven't even been competing against good so it's basically you can win points and stuff like that people yell out topics and then you jump in and you do the improv things but then there's a bit of a scoring system okay what is yes and oh um it's it's the i think it's almost like the basis of improv or something it's like it's like so so you're not meant to say no and you're not meant to i'm probably wrong in this because i haven't read up or anything my wife's doing improv classes at ucb at the moment she probably has this book my wife does my wife is my wife's right into improv right and and i know that you're not meant to say no in a scene because you're meant to go with what the other person is saying and you're meant to say yes and add

something to it so they can say yes and add something to that as well and so everything can flow and keep moving because there's nothing worse than i i'm really tired right now. I just fell off a bridge. Did you see me? No. No. And this is space. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no.

And I'm in a rocket ship. Or the classic Steve Carell, Michael Scott, I've got a gun. I said to my wife, I said, if you haven't, because she does improv class, and I go, just every scene, just rip off your face and say you're a lizard. Yeah. Everyone's going to laugh. Why is Chicago important to improv comedy? Because of Second City.

And so Second City is in Chicago and in Toronto, and they've basically given us everyone. Not everyone, right? But when you think of Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray and Tina Fey and Polar and then so you go up to Toronto and we've got Rick Moranis and John Candy and what's the name of the lady out of bloody Home Alone? Catherine O'Hara. Catherine O'Hara.

What group was Matt in? You said it right. I believe Matt was from Second City, Chicago. And I'm saying that because Dan Bacadale was Second City, Chicago. And I believe the two of them go back quite a long way. And here's another question. What group is Matt Walsh a founding member of? UCB.

I shouldn't have said it. UCB. He's got a't have said it. UCB. He's got a book, Matt. That's why I brought the book out. I was saving it for the end. But then the question was tipped. It's the last question. And the other question was,

what are some names of more well-known improv groups? You just said that already. Do you know when I was at the UCB, I was there and there's a photo of me and Chris Rock standing on the UCB stage. And it looks like the two of us had just finished a show there. And me and him were literally just standing at the front of the stage chatting. Really?

Yeah, I was about to do the Pinot Noir show, and he was at the show before that because I believe his cousin was in a show. His niece was in a show. Or his niece was in a show. Oh, wow. And he was in the audience watching it. And so the two of us were just sort of standing there like this. And then people who were looking at or that were all acting like they were

texting there's photos of every angle of you guys hanging out two of us hanging out and i took that photo and they put it up yeah but my wife took one the thing your friend cam took one and then there was they started coming out like the thing i was like oh that's good i'm happy to have the photo it's a good photo yeah all right matt how did jim doing his knowledge of improv pretty good uh 10 i'll give him a 7.5 7.5 yes and yeah how confident was he seven seven 14 and a half uh which one do i want you guys to do how hungry are are you? Is that what's next? How hungry am I? Yeah, I'm 10. I'm pretty hungry. So that's 24.5. So you've got Jim and Jack are on a road trip.

You've got to do like 30 seconds of that. Normally, I just make up, like, try to make jokes there. How many seconds? I don't normally do this, but because of the category. I don't know. Just do it. That's your suggestion. I'm hungry.

Where should we stop to eat? There's a sign over here. It says there's a McDonald's, a Burger King, and a Denny's? Let's keep driving until we see In-N-Out. And scene.

That was really good, guys. That was really hilarious. Does that count until I stop in? Because I said, let's keep going until we go In-N-Out. And scene.

And scene stops. That's like a director saying cut. That's and no no you became the director at that point and we're good I think the audience got what they wanted

out of that that was really good I the few times I've been asked to improv like why would you get nervous

me and Dan got very comfortable with each other improvising by the time we got into season two. We've done 26 episodes together or something like that. And he's just so giving with how he does it

that he sort of makes you feel like you're a lot funnier. And so I used to be very happy when I did it with him, but no one else. No one else I liked doing it with. Have you done stand-up, Matt? I did it for about a year in Chicago. You did? Yeah, it's a tough trade.

So with mixed results. But I think it is someone like Dan, a lot of improvisers feel the same way. I prefer to play with people I sort of am more comfortable with. So veterans or people I came up with. And much like Mindy, I don't really want to start with someone on stage who's just beginning to learn the rules.

I've put in my time, so I prefer to... No, no, I understand that. Yeah, it's like I prefer to play with people that are supportive and generous. Yeah. Now you just saw what you're capable of right now. Well, if I was on this podcast 26 times, we would get some chemistry.

We would develop chemistry. I'm a generous collaborator. There's a story. I might have told it before, but there's a story that me, Dan Bacadal, and DJ Cole. You know DJ? Yeah. So the three of us got so comfortable in our roles that we never learned

our lines before we showed up because we'd always get to set. Then they'd set up the lights. That would take 45 minutes. The three of us would sit around, bash out the scene. This is what we do in the scene, right? We get real comfortable with each other. And then we'd always request wide shot first

so we could fuck up. And then because it was my show, I got the last close up. And by then we'd already done it 15 times and I knew everything and we're good. The next scene, they're setting up, give me another 15 minutes. One time, the three of us walk in.

It's not that we've only briefly looked at our script. We don't know what the scene is. You wrote the show. Yeah, I have no idea what we're filming, right? Someone's going to hand it to us. Wardrobe had left an outfit for us. We always basically had the same clothes right and more java and me and dan we were all like going along and and uh and we we get into the set and uh they

go all right boys ready to go so dj sat down in his wheelchair and then i just looked at dan and i thought i thought i was the only one i went i haven oh, I haven't learned this. I sat down in my chair and then Dan standing up. They went, action. I never felt more like a schoolboy in trouble in my fucking life. You hadn't even looked at the sides. We didn't know the premise of the scene. That's amazing. We didn't know the premise of the scene we didn't know the premise

we went we don't know what's going on and it's your show and it's your show and I wrote the episode we don't know what's going on and they went you boys go and learn it really quickly we walked out with no cigarettes no nothing We don't know what's going on. And they went, you boys, go and learn it really quickly.

We walked out. There was no cigarettes, no nothing. We were straight down there. All right, what are you doing? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I'm a big fan of the therapy. Look, what are some things going on with you in your life? No, just the general public.

What's going on in 2024? Are you crushing it? Or you're not crushing it? Or you're crushing it, but you don't know why you're crushing it? You've got imposter syndrome? Yep. Bloody get yourself a bit of better help.

Around New Year's, we get obsessed on how to change ourselves instead of just expanding on what we're already doing right. Maybe you finally organized one part of your space and you want to tackle another bit of your brain. Or maybe you're taking supplements every morning and now you want to actually eat breakfast too.

Therapy helps you find strength so you can ditch the extreme resolutions and make changes that really stick. I love the therapy. I had some things over Christmas that I needed talking through with people and some personal issues that I don't want to mention to the therapy. I had some things over Christmas that I needed talking through with people and some personal issues that I don't want to mention to the public, but luckily I could mention them to a therapist and lighten my load.

I'm a big, big fan of therapy. I would even argue therapy is the reason I'm still here. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge celebrate the progress you've already made visit betterhelp.com slash idk today to get 10 off your first month that's better help help.com slash idk rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills.

I was skeptical. I was skeptical. I did it. I used the code IDK. I went in there. I had so many. I had subscriptions for things I never knew I had subscriptions for, for channels in other countries.

What? I had, yeah. Because for for channels in other countries what all right yeah because you know you do because you're always trying to like you're just like fine I'll subscribe to this they like the they made you watch that playoff game on peacocks ever subscribed yeah I subscribe to some things in Britain and Australia I don't live in those places yeah yeah it was a lot of money I can see all my subscriptions in one place and see if there's something that I don't want. I can cancel it with a tap. I never have to get on the phone with customer service. They'll even try to get you a refund

for the last couple of months of wasted money and negotiate lower bills for you up to 20%. All you have to do is take a picture of the bill and Rocket Money takes care of the rest. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and it helped members save an average of $720 a year. What have you got to lose with over 500 million in cancelled subscriptions? 500 million.

How many things did you say you cancelled? About a million of that 500 million was responsible for. Five things. Five things I cancelled straight off. And then there was a few things where I'm like, oh, I might watch that again. It reminded me that I had it. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash IDKAT.

That's rocketmoney.com slash IDKAT. Rocketmoney.com slash IDKAT. Yeah, but it is, like stand-up, and I'm right, so, I mean, there are very few stand-ups that are good. I think you're a good actor,

but... Me and Matt have done a scene together on the golf course. Yeah. You don't know that. Your sketch. What do you mean? I wrote that.

So far, he's written a sketch. Yeah, I wrote that sketch. I was out there. It was a sketch about me buying golf balls from Steven Seagal. No, no, no. You had hit a golf ball to his yard.

This is from the Connor Moore show. And you had hit a golf ball in his yard and you went over to go look at it. He goes, hey, did you see a golf ball? And then he's reading a newspaper and he's like, no, I haven't seen a golf ball, but I have these for sale. And you saw it with your initials on there and you went through all the combination of other people's initials it could have been. Then you ended

up buying at the end a range fighter that had SS on it, and you're like, oh, Steven Seagal. It just turned out it was owned by a Nazi. Yeah. But he had a business. That was my favorite line. He's like, this is a place of business. He's like, this is a place of business.

That made me laugh every time he said that. But, yeah, I just i just you know when you watch comedies that sketch is big in israel by the way weirdly weirdly we'll get stopped on the street can you guys do that i can't walk down the gaza strip that's how famous i am oh no cut it out that's the problem with improv you get in trouble all the fucking time it starts you Make a note. Make a note. That's the problem with improv. You get in trouble all the fucking time. Yeah. It starts. You got a note for that one?

Okay. If I just said, I can't walk down the streets of Israel, it still would have gotten a good enough laugh. But I went for the Gaza Strip. One step too far. Well, my point is that just every time you watch, the best comedic actors always come from improv. In my opinion.

I just. Well, yeah. So all the movie stars always come from improv in my opinion i just well so yeah so so all the movie stars always come from improv now occasionally you get a movie star that's a stand-up comic like eddie murphy or kevin hart or something like that steve martin who's a good example yeah martin was a good example of a guy who really yeah you would have if you didn't know you would think he was an improv guy yeah and ben stiller was kind of a sketch guy yeah you would have if you didn't know you would think he was an improv guy yeah and ben stiller was kind of a sketch guy yeah i would call him but he wasn't like a stand-up really no not really no um i mean you know obviously kevin hart and chris rod they've done it but i mean and

nothing against them they're just not as to me when i watch them like you're not because you don't have these skills skills and they're great scenes now I watch movies and I sort of go I bet you they improvise this scene because you listen to the dialogue and you went no one's written that down that dialogue's never been written down it's not sensical enough to have written down

to have someone to do it it has to have happened in the moment where people have said it so do you find, as an improv performer, that you have to like the people? Okay, so famously, Chevy Chase and Bill Murray didn't like each other. Yeah, that's the word, yeah. And that was in Chevy Chase's biography, and I've heard it.

This isn't just... And then you look at that scene in Caddyshack and they reckon they improvise that scene and it's maybe the best scene where he hits it into his the the groundkeeper's yard and he looks for his ball yeah i think that's my favorite scene in the whole movie it is a great where he pulls out the leaf blower at some point yeah yeah i think that was a written scene i don't think the i think the comic my guess would be because brian doyle murray and harold ramus maybe wrote that movie and i suspect that it was a commit there was a comedic engine to that scene meaning all the stuff that bill murray had in his place and chevy's looking for his ball so they kind of had a show and tell if you will set up in the scene

so chevy could lift something up and Bill could improvise something funny there or they might have had a few jokes ready to go if he picks up the sandwich or if he mentions the lake, he's like, pool, pond, you know, I'll swim in whatever you got. Like those I'm sure they had ready to go, but the comic engine was designed so both of them had something equally joyful or fun to play. So I'm assuming that, yeah, they're pros. Do you know what I mean?

So once they're there on set and people are waiting and it's like, we've got to shoot this, guys. Put your pettiness away. Or they just buried it years ago. Quite honestly, they probably just, you're a movie star, I'm a movie star. Let's just make this good. You know what I mean? That always helps when you're both movie stars. Yeah.

That's why I still have a lot of enemies. Just waiting to become a movie star. But even that show and tell, that's a term from, is that, I don't even,

I've never. You've never heard of show and tell when you showed up at school? A comic game, I guess like a comic dynamic that exists that both of you guys

have characters, like Chevy's the member and Bill's the you guys have characters like chavvy's the member and bill's the you know grounds crew and he's sort of poor and messy and who knows you know he smokes weed and is trying to kill a gopher so there's explosives and so who knows what we're going to find in there but that's a fun design for a comedic scene so you're the rich guy looking for your ball and you're going into the lair of this maniac groundskeeper who really just wants to be friends with you. That's great.

So that was carved up, I'm sure, in the script. I've told the Harold Ramis story before here, have I? I don't think so. Still upsets me to this day, and I'll never get to say anything. Okay, so I'm doing the Chicago Comedy Festival and they put on a showcase nasty show thing, which the three people... I don't know if you've told it, but yeah.

You know it. No, no, no, I know it. I know it's good. Right? And so it was me, Louis C.K., and Patrice O'Neill, right? And this was before Louis C.K. was hugely famous and before Patrice was dead. So it was that long ago.

Right. And we were in the Chicago theater and we were sitting backstage and Harold Ramos walks in and just sits down right away and he's like, all three of you were really great. I really enjoyed it like this, right? And this is back, I was probably, there was, I was definitely drunk and I may have been coked up i don't you know what i mean like i wasn't you know i wasn't rude per se but i just brushed him off and just went what who who's who's this guy this is like

i was just like and i just remember thinking who's this fucking arsehole cunt who's just walked into the dressing room and just sat down thinking like he was some fucking old bloke who just sneaked backstage or something and I went and I went like this yeah thanks man and I got up and walked away like let's sit next to that guy and then he leaves and they're like wow and I'm like

fuck it's equal man and I still to this day I just whenever I think I see him in a movie i go oh i love that guy and i was rude yeah and he made some of my favorite movies and i was rude so that's why you should always be rude to everyone keep it consistent oh wait i thought that's what you took away from that yeah you don't want to change yeah uh so what is improv or improvisational theater jim said it's when you improvise it comes from latin to make up i think that's right um theater without a script there's certain level of structure i would assume that there is dramatic improv as well as comedic improv and basically yeah like

going into the short form versus long form. We had comedy sports in Chicago, which is, I think, the same as theater sports. In a short form, you have a game. The game will be almost like a Mad Lib. It's like at some point we're going to do a scene, and right before the adjective comes, I'm going to point to you, the audience, and you get to yell what adjective describes them. So you kind of know what's going to be funny about it. Or we're going to stop the scene and rewind it

and do it in you know a different movie genre that you the audience are going to give us or whatever there's there's something that is basically the punch line already underlined for the audience to know their job and what's going to make it funny the mad lib of it all is for lack of a better word in long form you get a simple suggestion song lyric just one word theme topic and idea and then you just run with it you try to incorporate it for half hour 45 minutes whatever that might be and you can also get a monologue off of it and then unpack that monologue for information for the scenes that follow like you did in the pinot noir show but long form has no clear comedic underlined sort of game and there's not a lot of audience interruption right so that's that's the big difference between long form and uh i mean so what would it come the long form would have come before the audience interruption a bit right the long form is just

going off of one simple suggestion, and then it can take any shape it wants. The short form is dictated by the game you're playing. If it's like rewind the scene, we're going to rewind it in a different genre. If it's like Mad Libby, you guys are going to give us the adjective. Now we're going to do the same scene.

Sometimes they'll do the same scene, and then you'll give us a different accent to do it. You know what I mean? So it's prescribed what's going to be funny about the version of the short scene. So I'd change it to New Zealand to really throw things up. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So that's my boring answer to that sort of thing.

Do we know what the earliest known use of improv was? I was thinking like Comedia dell'arte was sort of they would have archetypes like you know live theater and it'd be like i'll be the landlord and he'd sort of just kind of live interact with the audience and the audience would boo him and he could sort of like so he would get dressed up as a landlord commedia dell'arte was like sort of the presentational i think it came out of italy i don't know exactly vaudeville it probably predates vaudeville what about pantomime pantomime is like street to me that's like street performing oh no no no no so pan panamore oh a

panamime i know what you're talking about. A pantomime is a British phenomenon. Yeah, around the holidays, right? Happens at Christmas. Yes. And so every small town and theater in the country, every town hall will do a pantomime. And what you really want is to get one actor off EastEnders or a Coronation Street, someone from a soap in Australia, if you can bag one of them. And you'll do Jack and the Beanstalk or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And there's a few rules that always happen. Men always dress like women. And put on that, you know, that Monty Python.

Oh, he's a bad boy. That type of a voice, right? And all the kids come from all the schools and they sit there. And then you go, oh, I'm looking for Jack Horner. Do you know where he is? And the kids would go, he's behind you. And then you turn around and the guy would. This is on the streets?

No, no, no, no. This is in every theater. Okay. This is in every theater. Okay. This is just a British thing. It's mental. But not improv.

I've done something like improv. Have you ever seen like Extras, Ricky Gervais Extras? Yeah, of course, yeah. There's a bit where his character plays a genie and he's like, ooh, that one. Yeah, yeah. Right? And then they go, he's behind you. And then he goes, oh, no, he's not.

And then the audience will go, oh, yes, he is. And they'll go, oh, no. Now, if you've never seen it and you're sitting amongst a theatre full of British people who all know the words back and forth for each play, it's fucking mental. It's really weird. Are you saying that in a good or a bad way? Yeah, is that bad mental or good mental? I like kitsch British stuff. Yeah.

I like kitschy British stuff. I think it's not something I want to watch again, but I appreciate that they're doing it and they're not giving up on it. It's very distinct. I think I saw one at the Pasadena Playhouse out here one year. Yeah. They tried to do it

and to some success, but it was based around a fairy tale or something. You need to have the audience. Yeah, yeah. You'd have Snow White and then one of the big things in the poster would be like, with real dwarves. Yes. And you're like, oh, geez, they've put some money into this one. Yeah.

So the earliest, were you done answering that sorry yeah that's my best I was just saying that maybe the panto thing had something like okay so when we say would you call Monty Python an improv group sketch group

they're just a sketch group right right so same with the goodies and all that type of stuff yeah Peter Cook and Peter Cook Dudley Moore yeah who are the key figures in the development of modern improvisational theater is it Gene Wilder you said the guy who started Second City and Gene Wilder yeah there's like the the Del Close is the guy out of Chicago he a big uh forefather of what we did you know coming out of chicago with the ucb i studied with him and then before that there was like the committee which dell was sort

of a part of which came out of the university of chicago and then they kind of traveled to different cities like st louis and they did these reviews but they would also incorporate improv to sort of use it to create sketches but sometimes they would just perform it and then there's something in st louis called the kitchen rules which are like the three earliest it was just two people like elaine may who was with mike nichols that director they were two two of the early founders of improv in chicago and they would do really intellectual stuff but i think they codified early improv with the kitchen rules and that's

that's almost like my cocktail party fact but i'll get back to that so what what are the kitchen rules we're gonna have to have somebody look it up but is that cheating for an expert to say because it's the kind of thing i could tell you like i'm sure it's like in the world of like yes and and agreeing uh agreeing on the environment if you just go like that's not st louis fine yeah st louis kitchen rules of improv i believe there's three yeah okay first of all if you're listening in your car right now and you're with one other person right now please follow the rules and improvise this scene you're no longer in a car you're in a tractor and go uh so rule number one a good improviser habitually accepts the offers made to him yeah uh two a good provide improviser habitually makes active choices rather than passive ones what does that what does that

mean active choices is like uh doctor can you look at my knee and then the other character going yeah I could as opposed to alright get up on the table and make it more active you're contributing the scene by making it more active as opposed to just not giving yeah I could in a minute that's not really helping the scene only one of you can be crazy

you can't have crazy on crazy it's harder to pull off you can do anything in improv you could have crazy and crazy but it's harder to pull off you can do anything in improv you could you could have crazy and crazy but it's harder but like those hard fast rules don't exist but in general it's hard yeah in general it helps the last one is good improviser justifies yeah so if that's true what else is true is kind of the rule there so like if you said uh i don't know like you look like a zombie. I look like a zombie.

Why? And then you would have to kind of justify why you made that label. I don't know. Because it looks like his flesh is pulling up his face. Yeah, because your shirt's ripped, and you do have a hole in your cheek, so you're sort of building it. You've got a skull on your T-shirt. It looks like you're following a zombie.

Now you're trying to be nice to me. That's the stand-up. Yeah. Yeah. the stand-up. Yeah. Your stand-up's nasty. They bust balls hard. You're nasty people. No, no. You guys are tougher, though.

Okay. I would say. We're very mean. Okay. So stand-up comedy dressing rooms, if you're not match fit, it's a ruthless place. What does match fit mean? It means if you're not at the peak of your powers when like mentally yeah or just or just up for it you got to go in there yeah yeah like yeah yeah fuck being

on stage you're all by yourself there yeah yeah but going into the comedy store dressing room and if there's a certain group of comics or any dressing room in the world you gotta you gotta be on your game yeah yeah right right is that the same with improv do you guys razz each other as much I feel because I've been backstage and when my wife sings it feels like everyone's

very supportive supportive yeah like I see stand up comics if you've had a really good show and everyone is like going oh fuck he's killing

he's killing he's killing oh he's coming back and then we all look like we haven't listened we all sit back in a chair no no I did

okay I didn't when I did Conan Jim was there with other friends of mine, and I'm walking back after the show. He'd stormed. He'd stormed Conan, and there's a walk back from the stage, and we were all watching it on the screen, and I was dead proud of him.

And this is what Jim does. So we're all going to tell him he did good, right? Oh, hey, hey, how you doing? I just did like the pinnacle of my career.'m like i know what you're doing but it still hurts the shirt looked good yeah i also just made a fool of myself in front of charlie day so oh yeah yeah yeah i told him i loved it i love your work yeah charlie day was the other guestrest did so good, he got asked over to the couch. Charlie said, we were doing the thing at the end.

You're just standing there. And he goes, I really loved your set. It was funny. And I just go, I love you. And I'm like, fuck. That's not what I meant. And then I go back to the dressing room. And then I'm walking.

I meant to say that. He said, I love you. Those never go well. That's it. That's the end. For me, it For someone you really appreciate Every time I'm on a late night show There's always someone

Way more interesting than me Who's the other guest And you never get to meet him Yeah Once Army Hammer Popped by to say hello once He was very interesting Yeah he's an interesting fella

He said he was hungry And he He popped by to say That he liked my stand up Which was nice And then I'm thinking So the other So Margot Robbie

Was one time The other guest And I That was the one where i lingered in the hallway i was just standing around like my room like where did i go checking the structure of the of the door like that because i thought she might know she's australian we have we have that in common yeah you know if she's walked by and she doesn't make icon doesn't know me i just thicken up the accent a bit and she'll she'll go where are you from and i'll go oh where are you from who are you um but yes i think improv i mean i don't know you is more supportive than you're saying because i it's like it's a stand-up's the hardest i've said this a million times stamps the hardest thing in the world like to be a good stand-up's the hardest i've said this a million times stamps the hardest thing in the

world like to be a good stand-up consistently is the hardest thing in the world so props to that but like but that's why i'm such an excellent plastic surgeon but improv is a collaborative art form you're building off of someone else's like do you remember that show tough crowd yeah that colin quinn had on like Comedy Central. That was before my time in America. Yeah. We'd have four comics. I went on that once and I thought it was like, yeah, I thought it was like almost like a

pitch meeting. Like we'd come in and like build a joke together. It was just like you say something wrong and then this guy comes and dunks on you. I'm like, fuck. I don't like this. It's like you really have to watch what you say. And that was the whole show. Or like, it's almost like a. It's like you really have to watch what you say, and that was the whole show. It's almost like a fryer's roast.

When you sit on a fryer, I've sat on the dais where people are just going to go at you, and it's for charity, but I have thin skin. I can't handle it. It's just sometimes it feels so mean that I'm not built for it. I'm not a big roast guy. No, I know, but it's downstream from like, I'm kidding. Come on, I'm kidding.

Don't be so thin-skinned. There is a famous, on Tough Crowd, you can look it up. It's Greg Giraldo and Dennis Leary. Those guys are amazing. And Dennis Leary at the time, Greg Giraldo was a headliner, but he wasn't that well-known. And Dennis Leary was already movie, TV star, whatever. And Dennis Leary says something and Greg Giraldo makes a joke

and he goes oh I bet you're the kind of guy that does you know whatever what did you do your homework

you wrote your jokes and then Greg Dorado just goes you can look this up goes into him hard and Dennis Leary was sitting there like he was like

and it is very uncomfortable but it's like but that's what the show was Dennis Leary was talking about war he was like Greg Dorado

took him down we just have to blow this fucking place up there no nothing we can do without actually firing a shot that and he went what like the cold war yeah yeah there was no shots ever fired and then he went through the history of wars and stuff and there he was like but i remember like there was some opium anthony shows where i'm like what i have to be this turned on like this switched on and it's fucking 6am and I'm like

because you sit next to Patrice O'Neill and Jim Norton those guys are machines it's daunting but you in saying that okay so I went to the ground when I first moved here I went to the groundlings and I did an audition I guess you go and you

they see what level you'd go into but I had never done any if they're gonna take your money for a class exactly yeah I bet they're gonna take you exactly you're gonna go level one or two that's okay but you still have to do it and and I did okay because I've been on state you know I wasn't like nervous perform but I didn't know what I was doing we're doing the warm-up the zip zap I don't know I didn't know what I was doing but then I was to me i didn't know what i was doing we're doing the warm-up the zip zap like i don't know i didn't know what i was doing but then i was to me i didn't i never ended up following through and doing the class because i was afraid to do them because i thought it was hard and you're sitting so it's funny when the way you perceive things you're like i'll stand up it's hard i'm

like i don't know improv seems very hard to me well to be good at it not like you can anyone right right to be good at i don't want to just yeah there's nothing worse than watching bad improv it's it's punishingly hard to watch that stuff or like really the stuff you're describing like the the rich kids improv like very presentational and lots of energy and it's not necessarily funny but they're winning over the crowd and they're just upbeat and there's a lot of energy like i don't enjoy watching that either so i get get it. But like just stand up is I think stand ups feel more in control because they're not relying on anyone. Like I got a story and like it's the same way if somebody interrupts you and you're on a rhythm. It's like, dude, please.

I really want to control this. Whereas improvisers are a little lazier and you can like have half an idea. I call it or whatever. Or like welcome. I got nothing. but somebody else is going to have something and so if you go up with people who are talented you come off looking great and you've prepared nothing and all you have to do is heighten and pay attention and ground it in reality and there's a lot of training that goes into it but so when someone yells out

mom shit halfway through a show i embrace that yeah from now on well that's so saying you can all fuck off and storming off the stage is not the right answer i've been reading the rooms wrong well you also have to you're like a lion tamer too because you don't want to encourage people for feeling like oh i can be part of show like no actually like we do that in improv shows all right we got our suggestion this is where you listen and pay attention that like you do you create that line but you also stand just hard who i don't know if the thing the name right viola spolin or is viola so viola spolin was one of the she did like short form games almost like theater sports and she was in the projects in chicago like the public housing

and that was like when all the immigrants were coming in she found that a way because all the parents were working in factories and she had all these kids she was trying to educate so she was a social worker so she used improv games where it's like you just talk italian gibberish and you talk english gibberish and they would do a scene together and somehow the kids were able to communicate with each other even though they didn't speak neither one spoke English so they didn't have a common language or like you be the boss and yell at him and you be the wife and you be upset when he yells or something you know and so she had these simple improv games for kids to play and it was

a way to socialize them in a new country as a way to give them playtime during the day and it was like the rudimentary roots and then viola spolin i believe son was paul sills and he's one of the main guys who started second city so downstream from viola's games is what became second city what would be a game that you would by the way if you had a real historian they would probably puncture a lot of this but i'm sort of paraphrasing history here. You know the most in this room. Okay, that's fair.

Yeah, that's how it works. Okay. What would be a game that you would say is a good starting point? What do you start a class off with, or what would you say to kids? The two people in the car right now, and they're in their tractor, and all they've done is fucking drive around. Yeah, they're in for In-N-Out. I don't know if this is a beginner game,

but the concept of group mind, like you're tuning into this imaginary group mind, if you will. So let's say you two, I'm teaching you in a class, and your goal is going to be to come to the same word. Oh, yeah. So I'll give you a suggestion, and you sort of word associate, but on the count of three, you'll both say sort of what it makes you think of, but listen to your partner, okay?

So the word we're going to give them is skull, okay? Fucking. No, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So go one, and you're both going to answer one two three sure okay so you said head and he said shirt now hold on so now think what's the bigger picture for what are you guys getting close to okay you're going to say another word you heard his he heard yours go ahead one two three hat hole all right try to say it at the same time so you know and the goal being so hat and hole

so it's kind of changing the concept's changing try to meet each other halfway with the mutual concept maybe one word ties it all together or at least you know

Jim and you know him alright one two three bold what were you gonna say I was gonna say box

box it's hard it's a movie seven that's an advanced game it's a hard. Box. It's hard. It's a movie. That's an advanced game. It's a hard game. Or the other game. Yeah, so that's a hard game, but I like it.

We want to get to the same. We're trying to get to the same word by taking the hints of the two words and try to connect them. Jack, you are fired. Fired. Okay. Or simply, we'll do this one quick. Everybody close your eyes. Okay.

And we're going to count to 20. Just randomly say one of the numbers going up but we can't if we say it at the same time when you get to it you mean if we say it at the same time we gotta start

no there's no order yeah anyone can start one we want two three four

five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.

Twelve. I sort of said it. You kind of stepped on each other, right? That's the sort of give and take exercise. I like those, but I don't know if it teaches you anything. Well, but I guess, like you said, the more comfortable you're around other people, you get that. Yeah, that's part of the deal, right? Yeah, and you're also trying to serve a scene.

Like you're stepping into a scene. Much like in stand-up, hecklers aren't serving the comedy. So if you two are being really funny in a restaurant scene and you don't need a waiter and I come in to be a waiter only to get a laugh, I'm not really serving what's already working. You know what I mean? So you've got to know when to hang back or introduce something. If someone's like, I wish the waiter was there, then you know to come in.

So a lot of it is just like hanging back when stuff's working. Yeah. You know what I do on this podcast all the time and people still write to me is I purposely step on jokes in this podcast because I know it upsets people. So then I do it and then people write me.

You know you're stepping on Jim's job. Oh, I was trying to stop doing that. I shouldn't have said that. You would have done well on Tough Crowd. You would have been stepping on Jim's lap. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You would have done well on that outcrop. You would have been great on topcrop. I get frustrated watching sometimes improv because I watch improv the same way I watch magic. So when I'm watching magic, I'm like, all right. What's the trick?

Yeah. Is he using twins? Where's the legs gone? Oh, no, they're behind that curtain over there. Like this, right? And then when I'm watching improv, they're like that curtain over there like this right and then when i'm watching improv they're like this like yeah as a kid i was really into dinosaurs and i'm like someone come in as a fucking dinosaur why are you who what missed opportunity i don't just watch it i'm always picking at the bits what is the oldest

running improv well the bad improv would be five minutes after the dinosaur was referenced you come in to be the dinosaur because you couldn't

let go of your idea dude we're way past that don't come in there's nothing worse than you have a really funny story to tell even on a podcast or something like that

and you're like oh no time's elapsing that's what happened with the book why did you bring the book. Yeah. No. Why did you bring the book back up?

It was so long ago, Jake. Callback. This is the exact. Paperback. Yeah, there you go. Nice. Two. What is.

Thirteen. What is the oldest running improv theater? Is it Second City? That's what Jim said. I'll say Second City. Okay. And Second City is a reference to Chicago being the second city of America? Yeah.

Is that the reference? I think it was, yeah, New York was the first city or theater city, certainly. So I think it even might have been pulled from a review, like, oh, the second city thinks they can compete with New York or whatever. Right, right, right. And so, like, a lot of people just go there to like i i saw a documentary on um uh chris farley who i adore yeah and he just went there and stood out the front of the building until they let him in and then you know yeah true yeah yeah yeah this was like i want to come in like as soon as you're meeting me like we'll put you in. Yeah. It was a magnet because people had come out of there and gotten a break.

And so if you had any kind of dream of being in comedy, at least sketch comedy, you would go to Second City. Why is Lorne Michaels an authority on sketch comedy? I know we're going off the thing. Like, I appreciate everything he's done and the movies that he's produced, and I'm not shitting on the guy. But why is he the doyen of what's good and what's bad in sketch comedy?

Does anyone know? Because he has the keys to that show that's been on for 50 years. But how did he get the keys to begin with? How did the first season? Because nobody cared about a midnight slot. They were just doing old Bonanza episodes at midnight, and he came up with the idea.

He was like like we can do counter programming there's a young audience and it'll cost us nothing plus it's track record it's like even when they're like oh I don't like this cast

or this cast I understand now but how does what was the first Domino Push I think he had a show in Canada or something I think it was part of a duo

a comedy duo in Canada but also what Matt was saying was that's how Byron Allen you know Byron Allen has all these TV shows Canada or something. I think it was part of a duo, a comedy duo in Canada. But also what Matt was saying was that's how Byron Allen, you know, Byron Allen has all these TV shows. And he basically just tells them like. Comics leashed. Yeah, no, but you can have them for free.

Make sure you do this joke. You know what he does though? He says you can have all, he has courtroom shows. You can have these for free. I want half the ads to sell. That's how he does it. He was a marketing major. So they're like, sure, we want a free TV show that we get half the ads revenue, and he gets the other half.

Oh, that is genius. I didn't know that. Yeah. You know Mike Myers started out doing double act stand-up in London? Really? Yeah, in the London Comedy Store. I don't know who his mate was, but there's loads of pictures. Someone very disgruntled right now.

Dana something. Anyway, so he did a – there's pictures of him. So I believe his parents were from – his mother or father was from Liverpool or something. That's why he's always with the Scottish accents, and he does all the regional British accents. And he did what I did. He moved over to England when he was 20 to go travel a little bit from Canada.

And then he went and did that. And then I think he came and did Second City afterwards. But he actually cut his teeth in the London comedy scene. That I didn't know. Long form, short form. We talked about that. Theater sports, I guess we touched on that, right? Yeah, to me, that's the same as comedy sports.

I could be wrong, but where the referee goes okay two points for this team and you're so that's kind of like where whose line is that anyway well whose line is definitely short form and again a lot sometimes they have and they give out fictional points kind of yeah yeah and they have jokes with them like they have on a tv show to secure or to ensure comedic value, they're not just letting those gentlemen go out there. They're funny as shit. Don't get me wrong, but they have jokes in their pockets that have been given to them. I've been on that midnight.

We know what we're about to see. I'm sorry, I don't want to put all the... I remember hearing from a Canadian executive. So the British panel show is a popular thing, right? That never quite sort of caught on in America. I love those. I was just in London. I watched so much panel shows.

I love them. Game shows. Never mind the Buzzcocks. Eight out of ten cats. Yeah. Good News Week. All these different shows in Britain. And you get on those and you sort of you don't know the questions because

there's normally a quiz based thing you don't know the questions but you know if a certain thing's going to come up so you can sort of prep a joke and all that type of stuff and this this this canadian thing was um tv guy was like you know we'd really like to have those shows but we've just traded but the canadian comics they just um you know the uh they don't seem to be as quick as those British ones and then and then the person the person said to him guys guys well you know they get the questions beforehand and just watching this executive go well that's cheating but that's cheating. But that's cheating. Yes, and?

We talked a little bit about that, but that's right. Yeah, yes, and is just receiving, much like the kitchen rules. You receive somebody's declarative statement, like, come on into my office. So you know you're in an office. You don't want to say, wait a minute, I thought we were on the moon. Then you're just ruining any potential thing you've started to build so you just agree with someone's what someone's giving you and then and is to add to it it's something that i've since my wife has been doing improv that i've been adding into arguments yeah oh yes it's clever so she goes

you're an asshole and i go yes and a mother a mother bleep and why is chicago so important is it because viola spolin is that like i guess several things i think like the early university chicago is where like the early modern second city route started viola spolin before that and then yeah and then del close kept it going and then second city was like this place where people like chris farley would show up it just became this they invested in developing sketch shows and improv like before any other major city also the weather what do you mean because it's so cold because yeah because it's very okay it's very hard okay australian stand-up comedy only really does well for the most part in theaters because people will come out and see people who are famous or something like that.

But the grassroots stuff, because it's nice outside, we just don't really want... You know, cold weather brings you indoors. It's the same reason Ireland has so many pubs. It's the whole thing that people want to go in and be entertained when it gets dark at bloody three o'clock and it's all bleak and all that type of stuff. I'm a big bleak. But why wouldn't that art form be stand-up comedy as opposed to sketch comedy in Chicago? Yes, I agree with the theory.

Mittens. It's all mittens. Explain. Cover this. Gloves. Not humorous. Functional. Functional. Functional. But if you have. Mitt this. Gloves. Not humorous. Functional. Functional.

Functional. But if you have mittens where you've decided your hand is just a claw. You've got claws. Or a puppet. Yeah. And then you've decided that I'm going to have a bit of string that goes through one sleeve right through my back, out through another sleeve. So if I take my mittens off, they just dangle off me hands.

Hilarious. But why can't you do stand up? Why do you need another partner? You're too much pointing in stand up. What are you talking about? When do you point? Stand up comedy is a fingered art form.

You're good at improv. You can't do it in mittens. Mittens is all improv. You might need to make an addendum to this book over here. I will. I love the winter rules. It should just be called mittens and why. Mittens are funnier.

J's are funny. Mittens are funny. But in Britain, the stand-up comedy circuit dies in the summer. Is that right? Yeah. So that Wednesday and Thursday is completely gone. Yeah. Chicago?

Is that because they're all in Edinburgh? That's a Rhys Darby joke. Rhys Darby used to do a joke years ago where he used to go like this. He goes, been here in England for a long time? He goes, remember last summer? It was good, wasn't it? It's a Wednesday. Chicago. I tell you on this podcast,

Chicago doesn't get enough credit as a city because it always comes up in a lot of the subjects that we do. Like Chicago, this is where this started. This is where this... It is a world-class city. Yeah. It's a great city. It's a fantastic city.

It's a banger, Chicago. It is. I love Chicago. The winter's very difficult, although this year there's very little snow it was just there and it was cold it was as advertised

windy and cold but I'm I'm coming from a place of growing up in Florida and living here so I'm yeah

the improv scene in Florida no good terrible well there was one of the suggestions let me guess manatee beach

the Orlando scene because of Disneyland. I think having all those people come in, they needed more ways to entertain these audiences. So I think there was like Wayne Brady came out of that world. Guys like that. I'm from Miami. Miami scene was not. I don't know any.

I know fashion came out of Miami. Give me a famous Cuban improver. I don't know any. I would go to some improv stuff and I'm like this is terrible this is your opportunity to do a Cuban voice

and then the first show I went to and I went to an improv show at UCB Miami? no here oh okay and I was like

oh this is really good I was like I guess this is what it's supposed to be I've seen some bad improv and I've seen some good improv

and it bothers me when people say they don't like improv for the same reason well you know I hate when I meet people who go like this oh yeah I've seen stand up

I didn't care for it who'd you see yeah you've seen it you gotta give it you gotta try it three times it's like new food right

I say that to my kids right oh I don't like that you gotta have it three times and then we'll decide whether you like it or not it might grow on you um

what group is Matt Walsh a founding member of you said UCB upright citizen upright citizen brigade um Amy

Polar nice and Arthur Franzarelli I think that one's wrong um I don't I And Arthur Fonzarelli. I think that one's wrong. Well, you can answer that.

I don't know. Matt. You don't know. Matt Besser, Ian Roberts. Yeah, we all came out of Chicago together. And what was the impetus? What year was that? I think in 96 we wanted to get a sketch show on Comedy Central, so we drove out to New York in a van, or different vans,

but that was the dream. And then, no, we're not there. We're all separate. We have nothing to do with UCB anymore. Oh, don't you? No. Oh, really? No, I didn't know that.

I really like that space. It's a great theater. It's a great little theater, and it's got a wonderful alleyway with kegs. Yeah. You know what I mean? It really makes you feel like you're in show business scientology right across the street well don't you feel like that's convenient for me yeah it's all right there yeah i can go in get a personality test then go off and do a bit of improv then stand in a keg alleyway like and then eat at birds yeah don't you feel like every stand up green room is like that like it's

you're always butting up against like common like the trash alleyway yeah I love that I love it too I like when you go to it doesn't Vegas or like banquet halls

and you see like 700 plates being decorated you know what I mean like when you go through like a big event space it doesn't matter how big the show gets the alleyways remain the same

yeah right so if you go if you're on on Fallon tonight right and they'll be event space it doesn't matter how big the show gets the alleyways remain the same yeah right so if you go if you're on on fallon tonight right and they'll be well we're having a car picking up mr jeffries and i'll be in my suit and i'll be and then you walk past the smelliest dumpster yeah the car drives you in underneath the rockefeller the blood of everybody goes about it doesn't matter if you're lady g and you're in a big special outfit. She's walking past that fucking dumpster. The trash elevator.

Sorry, we have to get on the trash elevator. She's definitely got the lift that goes with fucking corrugated irons, floors. There's a weird puddle. Don't step in that. Except there was that one casino. There was one casino. I think that was in Northern California.

Had a beautiful backstage area. Every, like, you know, the security came to get us, and they brought us to the service elevator, and I was like, this room is really well organized. I want to say it was around near San Jose or something like that. Near Dapa Valley or something like that. Yeah, and we went and played a casino. It was so nice.

It was shocking. You were like, what is going on here? And everything, it was like someone with were like what is going on and everything it was like someone with like obsessive compulsive had done the back and I was just like the manager's very tidy

I was like this is the cleanest it was I could have lived in this alleyway it was noticeable I was like and all the sheets

were falling like even the dirty laundry was clean and in boxes and oh yeah it was wonderful it was wonderful and then you can go

to some other places and you walk by and you're like, fucking this whole, the front of the casino is a sham. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Many of them. I think we were at a, no, I'm not going to say.

Don't want to throw it. All right, dinner party facts. Here we are. Ask our expert to give us a fact, something obscure, interesting about the subject that the audience can use to impress people.

I don't know i would say no i guess it's just like for me i got on v because the casting lady's like just put the script down and start improvising like that would be my like personal journey with improv like when i auditioned for you know got to do a great show for seven years with amazing writing i was studying that script like you guys you dan and dj were probably a lot funnier by sort of paraphrasing and i was studying it in that audition moment and i did one take and the woman's like the woman allison jones was like i think you're you just put it down Just say it. Just say whatever you want. And that opened the door for me to get the next rehearsal. So it's not really a shareable dinner party moment,

but it's filling space for your listeners. I feel like every skill you get is a skill that you can rely on every now and again, and they can help you through your career. Because I studied musical theater at university, and arguably, and then and they can help you through your career. Because I studied musical theatre at university and arguably, and then I worked in opera. People never know. I was in two operas, right, just in the chorus. That's impressive.

And you're like, that was before I did stand-up. And then I think, well, that was a big waste of my time. Was it? Because when I did stand-up, I hit the ground running because I already was on stage. I'd gotten rid of the stage for a bit and I already knew that the lights are going to be bright and the thing's going to be, you know what I mean? I just knew

to be comfortable so I felt like I was six months ahead of everyone else just from that experience. You know what I mean? I'll tell a funny interview story. When Dan Bacadal read for Legit it's so weird. I never acted in anything.

I never had an acting part. And then you've got your own sitcom. And so you've never felt more imposter syndrome-y than when you're sitting there casting actors. Yeah. I never had an audition. And I was casting. I'd had some auditions, but I never had an audition that worked out. And I was casting other people and, like, judging their performance as they came in.

Now, the part of Steve that Dan played was directly written from a person in my own life. So Dan does not look like this guy. He's not the same age as this guy. He doesn't have anything, nothing the same as this guy. And I was so, with blinders on, that's the guy I want. This is the guy I want. Like that, right? Dan walks in.

He's wearing a corduroy jacket with, like, patches on the elbows, like a professor. And he's bald, and he's got sort of different color hair and all these types. He looks nothing like the guy that I knew. And I was already like, nah, I'm not going to fucking cast this guy. And he comes in. The director goes, hello, Dan.

Sorry for keeping you waiting there. We're running a little bit behind. And he goes, yeah, yeah, great. I'm going to get a ticket, so thanks for that. And then he was like, I'm going to get a ticket. And he was not impressed. He was fucking. Oh, yeah. He was like i'm gonna get a ticket and he was not impressed he was oh yeah he was like this he was like this all right let's do this come on like this and instantly i was like i love this guy yeah i love this guy right and so soon as he left i was like this guy

is insane he's this is the i want that character on TV I want this angry he was like a man Noel Gallagher once said of his brother that he was a man living in a world of soup holding a fork and that's what Dan Bacadal is he's a man living in a world of soup holding a fork

right and so he got a call back and then obviously he came back and he was like oh geez i might get this and so he was super he come back like this hey guys hey hey uh oh you know this you know how it is a long day and i'm like i'm like no no bring your guy bring the cunny guy back. Yeah, yeah. So that's how he got it. We actually, everything that he ever did on screen, I wrote around Dan. Yeah.

So the character of Steve was never meant to be an alcoholic and then Stan plays such a good drunk. There was one scene at the beginning of season one where Dan's character had nothing to do. He had nothing to do he had nothing to do and so so he comes up and he goes i've only got a few lines in this scene he goes we're at a party and he goes and he goes what should i do here and i said i don't know he goes how about i get obnoxiously drunk right and just be in the background just like hitting on women and stuff

like that just be like sleazy horrible drunk and drunk. And I was like, yeah, great, do that. Right? That was as much as a conversation. And then from that moment on, season two was Steve's character is a horrible alcoholic. That's hard. That's an active choice. He was never going to be an alcoholic.

And the whole season was like the demise of Steve. He was losing his kids. The welfare was coming in, all this type of stuff. All because of that one little conversation. Alright, well cool. Thanks for being here, Matt Walsh. By the way, I love the Dinner Party fact, but also the

Viola Spolin. I was reading his book. That was such a cool fact. That came about just from the kids. Well, it was. It was a social worker who developed these games, these improv games for kids to sort of yeah it's amazing land safely in a new country and engage with other kids who didn't share the same language yeah so it was like you're gonna be a boss you're gonna be a lawyer uh you're gonna be an abused child whose father's left him see if you can find that somewhere uh or just imitate the space like those rudimentary games when you're in

acting class like okay do this and everybody imitates each other. You try to nail the character of the space, like real simple stuff. I don't know if it's too heady, but do you want to try to explain what the game is for long-form improv? I would say the game- It's where you neg women. I've tried it. It doesn't work. Yeah, Neil Strauss wrote that one.

No, the game is simply the repeatable comic dynamic that you sort of discover that you can go back to, like a blind interior decorator. Imagine that, okay? Sort of funny. But if you came about it honestly through improv where you're just sort of improvising and lo and behold, I discover he's my decorator

and then later on he's legally blind keeping that going would be really funny so the repeatable sort of comic dynamic would be funny so that's the game i think well thanks for that jack learn more in the book no i thought you were nice leaving us on a high there jack now. No, I want to repeat again, though. Listen to Matt's... And it's with Timothy Simon, right? Tim Simon. Tim Simon, yeah, from Veep.

Tim Simon, from Veep as well. Second in command of Veep Rewatch, where you guys just go through all the episodes and you have guests on. Yeah, we do a lot of off-topic shows, though. We just don't cover an episode. We'll just have people on and talk about nonsense. Find that wherever you listen to the podcast. It's on our same

network and then go and see. We started forcing people to watch. It would be like if you said watch episode 202, we would say watch 202. So we did a rewatch of a rewatch because we didn't want to cover anything to do with Veep. But anyways.

Go see Matt live in Atlanta at Dad's Garage on February 29th dadsgarage.com for tickets and Boca Raton the studio at Meisner Park

March 1st and 2nd the studio at meisnerpark.com alright Matt thanks for being on the show thank you this is a fun one this is a straight up comedy one

thank you hey ladies and gentlemen if you're ever at a party and someone comes up to you and says improv isn't hard go yes and I don't know about that. Good night, Australia.