The Always Sunny Podcast - The Gang Gets Whacked: Part 2

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Let's not forget that this is supposed to be fun.

Hello everybody! Hello everybody! It's so good to see you! Oh man. I'm so happy to see all your faces. Everybody's here. It's exciting. God, you were a goddamn mess the last time I saw you, buddy.

You were just your puffy face. But mostly, you actually didn't look that bad. You mostly... Well, did I just not used to... And not that I've never seen you like that. But like, you're not usually that sort of... I don't know, self-conscious? Is that the right word?

Yeah, self-conscious. Like, about the way you look. I feel like for the most part... I feel like you looked exactly the same except your lighting was worse. Yeah, your lighting was worse. And you were just rubbing your eyes a lot. Maybe you were a little tired, like a morning tired, but that's... A little puffy.

Your face was the same face. Same face. I do have the same face, yes. Yeah, week to week. Doesn't change that much. Year to year sometimes it changes. Oh yeah. Year to year.

Year to year it changes for sure, yeah. Yeah, I was... Yeah, I don't know. I was just off a jet. Remember, I was complaining about that. And I was just feeling a little off, I think. But, you know, we all have our bad days. And I appreciated all the support.

And I've been getting a lot of support from people. About... What do you mean? Like, people have been coming on and telling you... Hey, Robbie. Building you up. Damn, you're bad. It was an interesting response that I saw on social media

just about people... I don't know. I think that they... They were saying it was okay. It was okay to have a down day. Hey, man, it's okay. I get tired too sometimes. You get tired.

I get tired, man. You guys get tired of her? All I ever am is tired. If I had some nose clams... At the time, if I had just one bag of nose clams... Sweet delicious nose clams. Okay, so now we're talking about the gang gets whack part two. And I was watching it last night with my beloved spouse.

Oh, by the way, I'm just going to throw this out there in terms of staying current. Caitlin broke her foot. Okay, so... I texted her. I saw her Instagram thing. I was like, did you break your foot? And the doctor said it wasn't officially a break.

It might have been a sprain. But it feels like it's broken. Well, she's walking around in a boot. And... Yeah. Good ass. We counted. This is the sixth bone that she's broken since...

How'd she do it this time? Did she put her shoe on? Or did she... Yeah. God, she breaks easily. But she never gets sick. It's such a weird thing, right? It is crazy.

She has not... Riddle is all hell. She has not gotten sick in years. I haven't seen her have a cold for a year. I think I would still take getting sick over breaking that many bones. Oh, yeah. Right?

Someone said, hey, you could never get sick for years and years. Not a head cold, nothing. But you're going to break a bone like every six months. I'd be like, nah, I'll take the cold. I think. Agreed. Agreed. I mean, what kind of sick are we talking about?

If we're talking about a cold, sure. What kind of sick? Yeah, sure. Yeah. You're going to get lupus every month. I mean... No, she's broken her foot and she's hobbling around like a jerk. But she's a trooper and she'll get through it like she's gotten through the last 20

bones that she's broken. So were you there when she broke it? No. Did you hear the screams? No. No. I just... I just saw her walking out to the backyard and she was limping and I just shook my head

as she approached and I said, you broke your foot, didn't you? And she said, yes. I just knew the look. I knew the look. And I have a whole section of a closet that we have in the house called the Caitlyn section and it has boots, full boots, those like leg cast boots, a cane and two sets of crutches and we just keep them. We just keep them around because we might need them again and in fact...

Why don't you just set up... You've got... I feel like you have enough room in your house to just set aside a whole room that's just for triage, you know what I mean? Just an emergency room. Get your own little ER. Yeah, your own little ER. You have like a guy that's on call and when he shows up, he's got his little doctor bag

but you've already got it all set up for her to get... You've got an x-ray machine in there, you've got whatever equipment that he would need so she doesn't have to go so hobble to the... That's in some sort of bubble boy suit, you know, some sort of like just bubble wrap kind of thing. Yeah. You could bubble wrap Caitlyn every single morning before she leaves the house. Yeah, yeah.

You know, really keep her safe. You promised, I'm sure, when you got married you probably promised to keep her safe and all that kind of stuff so... Yeah. I think it makes sense. Cars sometimes. I'm like, why are cars not like just giant round rubber balls? You know, like why don't we do that?

You know, like it's like, ah, fuck, sorry, I ran into you, good thing we just bounced off each other. You know, the way your brain works is amazing. I want to see that. I want to see that. Come on, we can put a man on the music, can't make a car, a big round, safe rubber ball, I don't know. Yeah, it's like you're sitting in the middle of the ball and the ball rotates around you

but it's clear so you can see out, you know, you can see 360 degrees. I think it's a great idea. I mean, you've got wheels, you've got an axel, you've got a ball. What powers the ball? No, you have an engine, you have all that stuff but there's so much rubber, safe, foamy, soft rubber around everything that, you know, when you slam into someone, it's just nice good bounce, you know. Yeah, you bounce around.

But wouldn't that bounce you with such force that it would break your neck? No, because it's just rubber on rubber, it's a good sort of, you know, you have a seat belt and you have an airbag but you don't have all those hard angles and metal and glass everywhere. I don't know what the windshield is but like. You probably have a, you know, something to, something, well something that you wrap around your neck so that your neck can't really, you know, so when you do bounce around, you're just like bouncing around like this.

Yeah. What did everybody say? But if it was rubber hitting rubber, you're on the 405 and you smash into somebody, you're, it's going to shoot you to Pacoima. Yes. Like you're going to be airborne. That's fine. You're going to be out just out ahead a bunch of other rubber things along the way and everyone

will be fine. That's right. It'll just be an earth full of, full of those like rubber bouncing balls that you had as a kid. Yeah, you take like two lacrosse balls or whatever, I don't know, some kind of like, you know, massage ball and you shoot it at full speed at one another, they're going to, the balls are going to be fine. Yeah, they're going to shoot everywhere but the balls will be fine and stuff inside the

balls will be fine. You end up in Pacoima, so be it. You know what I mean? You're like, you're like. So in Pacoima. You're going to be in Pacoima, let me grab a bite and then I'll just bounce right back to where. I'd rather be in Pacoima than Caitlyn's tree eyes room.

The gang gets waxed. It's funny. It's wild. It's both, it's so funny. It's so cartoony, but it's very funny. It's pretty cartoony. Do you remember, the thing that popped out to me the most was, do you remember why we made it so that we're not, nobody is snorting the cocaine, everybody is rubbing it on their

gums? No. No, was that a standards and practice thing? That was a standards and practices thing. Oh my goodness. They told us that we could not actually see somebody snorting a line of cocaine in the episode, which is odd. On FX.

On FX. TV has changed, man, TV has changed. So we pivoted to the gums, which is so much funnier anyway. Every time they give us something like that, I feel like whatever we come up with is 10 times funnier than what we originally intended anyway. Because then they don't have the intent of getting high and it starts happening accidentally, which is a funnier engine for story than just they want to get high. People online were interested in knowing, do you guys remember what that was that you

were eating, Charlie, the cocaine? Was it powdered sugar? I think it was like flour, I think it was like, probably just mounds of flour. Eww, really? Gluten. Gluten. It's probably worse for you than cocaine is, I mean, the carbs alone. Probably not, probably not.

We shot that, we shot a lot of the episode in Philadelphia. In fact, in Kensington, we shot a lot of the episode in Kensington. And Caitlin remembers it being one of the hottest days she's ever felt on the planet Earth. Oh, I remember it being really hot. Cricket thinking those trash cans are cattle drums is like one of my favorite things of the whole season. In that scene, you guys are walking up to Cricket and she said she's wearing a pair of jeans.

She said they had to cut the jeans off of her. They couldn't pull them off of her. Because the sweat combined with the tightness of the jeans, she couldn't get them off. She couldn't get them off. And they were like pulling them, pulling them, pulling them, finally Wardrobe just came in and cut them off. Like it was triage, like she was, maybe she had broken something, I don't know. Do you think they had those kind of those six scissors where the one that touches your

skin is like, you know, like nice and, what's the word? Yeah, I do think they actually, I do think the Wardrobe Department has those. Yeah. In case they need to cut a performer's clothes off of them, because they have sealed them with sweat. I'm a big fan of the, the ass play conversation with Danny, I never ordered any ass play. And the woman sitting at the counter is amazing. The thing that jumps out at me most in watching this episode is how all of us, all of us are

doing gymnastics, like trying to be, just really, because we're actors and we're trying to be funny in each scene. And we're just doing anything and everything we can to milk every single moment. And we're working so hard and it works and it's funny, but it took a lot of effort. And Danny just walks onto the screen and is so casual and it doesn't look like he's doing anything because he's barely, he barely is and he is so fucking funny. He's just taken us all to school. He's so funny.

He's pretty amazing. I mean, the, yeah, the ass play conversation. And then the scene where we're playing, was it Two of Hearts? Oh yeah. Yes. Both of us tripping. Yeah. Two of Hearts.

Yeah. Susie, Susie Q. It's pretty great. And the, when he shows Dennis the ad, the body work by Dennis Ad. Dennis. Yeah. When I was based on real, those were real ads. It says no rules.

It says right here, no rules. It says no rules. Now, wasn't that photo just a still shot from you taking your shirt off for Margaret McPoyle in the hostage episode? Like we basically just screen grab this. So we create that in the editing room or do we have that on set or someone just like made it. No.

We had that in the paper. Yeah. It was in the paper. That was the prop. It was in the paper from me being all sweaty and shirtless and just put it. This is how old this television show is. That was based on real ads that we would see in newspapers, weekly newspapers, or even the LA Times, where you'd get to the classified section and then there would be a whole area

that would say massage and body work, body work really. So if you specialized in body work, you could call Ramon, you could call Jimmy, you could call Carla, you could call Tatiana and they'll show up and they'll work your body. No problem. Yes. If you call it like who's showing up if you call one of those numbers, somebody scary and then somebody is somebody somebody's really scary comes in first and introduces you to the person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody really scary shows up and says, you know, you'll be working with Tatiana, but I need to have a little conversation with you first. Yeah. You know, she's going to work your body. She's going to work your body. Don't worry about that. You know, body work will be done, but a different kind of body work is going to occur if we're

not satisfied financially. If I'm not satisfied financially, yeah. Yeah. Then we're going to work your body. We're going to work your body. And I'm going to be satisfied. You don't want me to work your body, but let's put it that way. You'll be satisfied and I'll be satisfied.

There's only one person that won't be satisfied in this equation, then that's Tatiana. That's Tatiana, but we're not, you know, let's not concern ourselves with that. Let's not concern ourselves with that right now. Don't worry about that. You never would have made that phone call to begin with. We're both a part of the same hypocrisy, sir. Now, get in the room. Getting all philosophical.

Don't give me that look, sir. You're just as much part of this as I am. That is kind of what's happening in the episode where we got you, Frank gets all pissed off because we got Dennis thinking for himself again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was part of the fun of creating that episode was like, well, very like sort of accelerating the process of grooming, you know, and getting someone to completely submit to your will by just totally manipulating them. What? I like that you made no effort to not burp directly into the microphone. No effort. Just a quick second of just coming back. No effort.

What? I gotta put on air. I gotta put on air. It's just because we're talking on the internet. Just because millions of people are going to watch this, I got to put on airs. I love the addition of the line. So you say, no, no, no ass play on this one. And he says, well, you don't have to do anything with the ass.

The last one, it got weird and he says, don't worry about it. And you say, well, we might have to go to the hospital or just think, just to be safe. What does that mean? I mean, what's the implication? I don't know. But it just made me laugh. There could be something in there or something might have torn. Sure.

Just to be safe. Or just to be safe. We'll set up that. And then instantly, you know exactly what's going to happen in the next scene when he says he's laying there reading the magazine. I never ordered any ass play. He'll do anything with the ass. Just the term ass play is really fucking funny.

Yeah. Yeah. Like that's that's. Yeah. What's she doing? Yeah. What's she doing down there? What kind of play is it?

Well, she, you know, she's, she's having a look around, exploring a little bit as my guess. You know what I mean? I don't know if she's pleasuring herself or me, but either way, it's pleasurable for her. But you're the one doing the work. You're the you're doing the body work. It's body work by Dennis.

So yeah, but he's also providing a body to do the work. That's providing a body to work with. I'm doing body work. Yeah. Yeah. I'll do some body work, but I'll provide a body for you to work and play. But that's the fun of it is that is that you're both working. You're both working and playing at the same time.

Let's not forget that this is supposed to be fun, you know, honestly, ass play is better than ass work. Yeah, it seems like there's some more heavy lifting involved. Heavy lifting. You don't want it to be work. You want it to be play. Yeah. You want it to be play.

Yeah. You want it to be play. Yeah. Ass work sounds like, you know, someone's going to get some pleasure out of it for sure. But yeah, you're going to be burning a lot more calories. I have a fond memory of my grandmother coming to set, you know, because she lived in Philly and we were shooting the scene where we find Cricket on the street and he's homeless and she found it very amusing that he was playing a priest and but also just be like, so he's

a we're on cocaine grandma and trying to like explain it. Yeah. Yeah. Sitting there with the earphones, like listening to the scenes. But she enjoyed it. Yeah. And then two seasons later, we put her in an episode as one of the Red Hat Ladies. She's sitting with me playing the piano and then she passed away shortly after that.

I mean, she was like 96 or something, but she would continue to get checks for the performance because it would air and, you know, like little five dollar residual checks. And I remember my aunt being like, can you cancel these because it's like a pain for us to like, it's like, we can't process it and there's a whole thing. I don't know. Yeah, just a stack of checks that only amount to about like 98 bucks total. Yeah, if you're lucky. Yeah.

We've talked about the stack of checks, right? We've talked about Charlie's stack of checks on the podcast. Not on the podcast. I don't think so. Okay. Yeah. All right. Let's get into that just because you brought up a stack of checks and it's.

Yeah. I had the same thought. Unbelievable. Yeah. I don't know. I hear the word stack of checks and then I hear that it's like a pain in the ass. And I remember Charlie lived in this real shithole apartment that we shot the original sunny in, but we loved it.

We would spend a lot of time over there. I was so psyched on the department coming from New York City. I was like, we have a little balcony that we can smoke on and like, yeah. So I was so broke and Glenn was not. He was never broke. He was always working. Yeah. I was always successful.

Yeah. Go ahead. Yes. You've been successful from the day you graduated from the Juilliard School. Glenn and I started working and getting paid to work the second we tried to be an actor, but go ahead. You were saying? You were saying?

You were saying? It's all true. But you were struggling, which makes sense. Oh, God. Struggling, struggling in so many ways and emotionally as well. When I would walk into your apartment and I would see this, I saw a stack of checks and I'm not exaggerating. Glenn, like this thing.

I remember. I just for some reason, I remember them always like in my memory, they were sitting on top of his keyboard. They were always on the keyboard. They were always on the keyboard. That's right. He had a big, giant, cassio keyboard. I had a keyboard and a bed and that was probably about it.

That was it. And a pile of checks. And an empty Yuhu containers everywhere because that's all Jimmy Simpson's. Yeah. He would just drink Yuhu all day and eat macaroni and cheese and smoked cigarettes. I mean, that's the best part of being in your early 20s. So, I look at this stack of checks and I'm like, can I look at this and you're like, yeah, sure.

And I'm looking at them and they're these payments. For like hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? No, no, no, no. Not that much. Not that much yet. But even hundreds of dollars. Maybe I had like four or five grand sitting around right there. Yes.

It would be like a check for $300, a check for $600, a check for 50 cents, a check for 75 cents, a check for two grand. And I'm looking at them and I ask them, have you cashed these? And he says, no, that's why they're just sitting there. How long have you had them? I don't know. They just keep coming and I just, it's such a pain in the ass. And I said, it's such a pain in the ass to do what?

Well, you got to turn them over, you have to sign them. That was what you had to do. You had to sign it and then you had to walk it to the bank and then in exchange for that, for all that work, the bank would give you money. It would give you cash for the checks. Well, that's not what it was, was that I didn't want to walk down to Wells Fargo every time I got a $7 check. I waited for like a month and I collected all the checks from the month and then I brought

them all down and I put them all, I didn't cash them in, I didn't walk around with a briefcase full of money, I had what they call a bank account and I put them into the bank account. But yeah, I mean, that was the independent film channel. That thing was a cash cow, man. I mean, yeah, but for a guy like... A check cow, that's for a goddamn sure. And I told you start... I was just going to say for a guy in wrong position, you know, he's...

Do I do it? Do I do it? Do I do it? I'm trying to do that. And then I would record those at Buzzy's and I went down to Buzzy's that one day and there was someone else in there recording, and they had fired me, but they had forgotten to tell, and they had like double booked and I went down and they're like, oh yeah, yeah, we were trying to replace me for like three years and they just couldn't do it.

But it was a good thing to get. Why would they replace the person that's never cashing your checks? I mean, they're just basically paying you. They're not even paying you. They're working for free. This guy's working for free, doesn't even know it. I cashed the checks.

By the way, if you give him a you-hoo, he's happy if you just give him a you-hoo and a bag of Funyuns. Well, the whole thing with that was that, I was like, I bought a house. I put a down payment on a house that I couldn't afford with the money that I had saved up from the Luis Guzman show and the IFC money.

And I was like, okay, I think I can swing this. And the day that I bought that house was the day I got fired from that IFC job. But the next week we sold Sonny. So it all worked out. I thought I was gonna have to rent the whole place out. Your life, you just- Worked out, what can I say?

Step and shit, left and right. Everywhere you go, people just wanna hire you. No, no, you don't step and shit. But you just, that shows you how- I've been a lot of struggling first. Not a lot. Yes, you do. Not a lot, not a whole lot.

Why didn't you just hire Rob to forge your signature on the checks and walk them to the bank for you and give him just like a cut of those checks? That would have been a good job for him. I would have done that for 2%. You could have done that for 2%. Let's make one thing clear. There was no issue here.

I just was saving them up and then I would go once a month with all my checks. This was a sensible practice? 100%, no, but for a very broke man, as Rob was at the time, it was like, he would have been living paycheck to paycheck. Literally, wait, what? I said, how's him being broke my fault, you know what I'm saying?

By the way, speaking of cuts, I have to say I love Charlie that moment when you see Cricket on the street and you're talking to him and then you say he can stay at Dee's place and then you reach into his little cup and take a few coins out like- Well, I gotta take a, I gotta take a cut.

Well, we're gonna get it now. We're gonna get it. It's not cheap to produce these things, you know? Yeah, I mean, look at the lighting kits we have to afford. Yeah, and then I like to let the sun wash me out, but then, you know, that's not reliable because they don't know whether the sun's gonna be shining, you know?

So it's tricky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we can talk about how you guys are constantly struggling to find good lighting and how I've never had a single issue later. But first I'd like to shout out to our friends at Viori. We're helping us pay for those light kits. You know, if you aren't familiar with Viori,

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Okay, well, look, the first thing is to realize that you're not alone. Oh good, I thought I was the only one on the planet who was concerned about it. No, no, no, no. Actually, many more people than you would think are sick and tired of their traditional workout gear. But Viori has the shorts, the leggings, and joggers for us.

I mean, everything is designed to work out in, but it doesn't look or feel like it. Now these shorts are so comfortable, you will want to wear them all the time, whether you're sweating or not. And they look great too, which of course is 90% of the appeal of wearing anything because we're all vain. Yeah, but they are made to work out in

so that you can look great when you're not wearing anything too, you know, which is 90% of the appeal of exercising, right? So altogether, we're talking like 180% appealing, you know, that's pretty good. That's a lot of appeal. And Viori is offsetting 100% of its carbon footprint. Yeah, yeah, that's another great percentage, 100.

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but enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over $75 and free returns, go to Viori.com slash Sunny Pod and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. You know what, Rob, I had a funny thing. I decided, I don't know why I was, I listened to a screenwriting lecture by Paul Schrader. And then I got flooded with memories at that time where I had a pile of checks on a keyboard

and we were making a home movie that turned into Change Our Lives. But I remember that you had been working with Paul Schrader on a script or something or like, was he guiding you on how to write a movie? It was the first script that I wrote and I wound up optioning it to a company called Propaganda Films.

And then Propaganda Films, they optioned it for, no joke, I think it was $1,000, which was so much money. But after taxes and commission, I couldn't stop working at the restaurant. And then Paul Schrader signed on to direct it. So he and I were working together on a draft of this movie that I wrote that he was gonna make. And then the company went bankrupt.

It was called Those Invited In. Oh, right, Those Invited In. That is a good title. Keep going, let's keep telling this good story. It was not funny, it was not funny. It was a super dark drama, the kind of movie that Paul Schrader would make. For the audience, Paul Schrader wrote Taxi Driver

and Raging Bull and directed some really amazing movies, but he's quite a character. And the whole thing fell apart. And that was a huge impetus for me to never wanna go through that process again, where in the end, I had a draft that I didn't really love because Paul wanted to take it in directions that I wasn't into, but I was just listening to him.

And I thought, well, if he wants to go in this direction, then I should write that. And then at the end of the year, the movie fell apart. He went on to direct a movie called Autofocus and then something else. Good movie. I had $1,000 that I had made from it for a year. And I thought I'd never wanna do that again, ever.

So when I wrote the original, original Sunny and brought it to you guys, the thought was always to make it ourselves so that we didn't have to do that again. I mean, I was in a similar place from doing, testing constantly for TV shows and never getting the part and finally getting the Louis Guzman show. And then, you know, seeing that kind of go over a cliff

and feeling like I could do so much, give me an opportunity to do more. And then just kind of being like, I don't wanna, I still kind of feel this way where, you know, I hope the phone rings and sometimes it rings with something interesting, but most of what I read, I'm like, I don't know, let's just do our own thing. But every now and then you read something great.

There are other brilliant people out there, just if you can't wait for them to, you can't wait forever for them to call because most of the time they don't. Yeah, and there's also no replacing working with your friends, provided your friends are talented. I mean, this is nothing better than that. I mean, that was the thing that excited me

from the very beginning about all this was, stop it, Rob, I see you. Yes, I'm burping, God damn it. I mean, you held back two burps and then you just finally, we just won the release. Why don't you just burp right now? Get your burps out, get your burps out. It's only when I start talking.

That's what I'm gonna start. Oh, it's the jinx. You've got, have you murdered someone? The burping. The burping. No, no, I've never, no, I have not murdered someone. Um, you can't murder Canadians, it's too easy. For the listeners out there, Glenn's going through

a crisis of conscience right now because, I don't know, let's listen to him. He's doing a bit, but he hasn't fully committed to it. Like I can tell that you kind of are like, oh, do I want to do this? Do I want to do this psychopath? You know what I mean? I see what's going on.

You're like, kind of like, oh, do I do a, I've murdered people a bit or, then your mind was like, I'm kind of tired of it. Maybe it's in Brooklyn. 100%. That is so accurate. That's so perceptive. It's completely accurate.

It's completely accurate. That was exactly the thought process. Maybe we have to rewind it for the creeps and even if the listeners should go back and watch this on the creep channels because you can see exactly what Charlie just explained in Glenn's eyes. He was going for it, but then didn't,

but then stopped. No. No, I've never, no, I have not murdered someone. You bailed on the bit, which is totally within your rights. What were we just talking about though? We were talking about,

Well, making stuff with your friends and your family. Making stuff. Oh, that's what it was. Yeah, no, I mean, that was what excited me the most from the very beginning was just the thought of like getting to make something. I never made anything. I'd only ever, you know,

been a pawn in somebody else's game. You know, whether it be Tennessee Williams or Bill Shakespeare, you know, Bill Shakespeare or, you know, any one of those playwrights. David Rabe. Oh, Dave Mamet, you know,

what have you. And I just thought, well, you know what it also was, it was coming off of, it was coming off of that 80s show and not being fully satisfied. And part of that was my fault because I was too

deferential, you know, I think it was deferential to a fault. I felt like, you know, this is, I don't really know what I'm doing and everybody here knows what they're doing. I had comedic instincts. I had instincts about the scripts. I had instincts about how I felt

like it should be executed. But I thought to myself about, what the hell do I know? I don't know shit. You know, these guys have been making that 70s show. They've been making all these, you know, great things for years. So they clearly understand, you know,

how to, how to do it. And, you know, also you're a young guy. You're coming into a network show, which is a big machine, right? Like us, our show was not a big machine. It was lean and mean and just us figuring out as we went along.

Like there's that feeling of like, whoa, man, they're putting some money in this and who am I to say how to do it, you know, when you're starting out there. Also, no one's going to fucking listen to you because they're like, you're just the actor, you know. Yeah. I mean, I just, look,

I have a very specific memory. This is a real turning point for me when we were rehearsing for an episode. And, you know, for those folks out there that don't know how, like, so with a multicam, which a multicam is generally, I think defined by there's multiple cameras

shooting at the same time, usually in front of a live studio audience or it's at least portrayed to be that way. And that 80s show was a Fox live or a, yeah, like a live multicam show. So you'd rehearse for a week and then you'd do the show live. Anyway, we were in rehearsals

and we were rehearsing a scene that I thought was really, really funny. I thought it was really well written and I was enjoying it. And, you know, but I was coming from theater so I wasn't, I would, my process, like I was a little slower to make strong choices, right? I was like, we've got a week to rehearse this.

So like let's rev up into it, you know, I'll figure it out as we go and then I'll be ready, you know, when it's, when it's game time. You know, so we were doing this scene and it just wasn't, it wasn't fully working, you know? But I knew there was a way to make it work. But, you know, the director just kind of jumped to like this.

He was like, you know, this, this scene's, it's just not working. It's not working. We should just cut it or rewrite it or whatever. And I was like, well, well, and I finally did speak up. I was like, well, hold on a second. I actually do think it's, I think it's funny. I think we just need to rehearse it,

which is what we're here to do, to like try to figure out how to make it as funny as possible, you know? And he was like, no, it's just not working. And, you know, and I remember in my mind thinking, this fucking guy doesn't get what's funny. He doesn't know what's funny. He doesn't get, he thinks it's not funny

because he doesn't get it, but that doesn't mean it's not funny. And I was like, I was like, can you just, I was like, hold on, can we just, I have an idea. Can I just try something? And I distinctly remember the director sitting like this. And, you know, and I could see his thought process. His thought process was, this is a waste of my time.

Why is this fucking kid trying to tell me how to do my job? But he's the lead of the show. So I have to just let him do what he wants. So he was like, yeah, okay, action. And then just like looking at his watch, like, you know, which of course sapped all my confidence. And so, you know, whatever it was that I was planning to do, I just completely blew it because I had no confidence.

And then from that point forward, it was really a little like, like something's not sitting well with me here. This doesn't feel right. So, you know, it was moments like that that made me realize I had strong opinions about how things should be executed. And so when we started making this,

it was an opportunity to test that. I think that machinery is what goes so wrong in so many TV shows, certainly of that era too, where like it's the way it's done is locked down and the power dynamics are so locked in. And, you know, there's, I've been around, you know, those sort of multi-cams too, where the writers are one camp and they're like,

we're the writers and these actors don't get it and the studio doesn't get it. And it's just like, if everyone's not working together to make this thing as best as it can, it's just sort of false part. Yeah, totally. If an actor comes in to our show and says, funny or shit, then we've put in the script,

great. Yeah, the best idea's got to win. But there's still a curative process. There has to be, but there's a curator there, right? Who's deeming whether something's funny or... I'm sure there have been actors on our show over the years who've come in and truly thought that what they were saying

is funnier than what we wrote. That's happened before. Even we've done versions of that before where we've written something and then maybe I've said the line differently and I thought, oh, that's making this particular moment better. And then Charlie's like, no, it's not. And then I ask you and you say, no,

no, it's better on the page. And then you go, oh, okay. I trust the curation process. But there's got to be, because otherwise it's just everybody's sort of comedic point of view. It can't be a free-for-all. It can't be a free-for-all. And there are those other dynamics that go on too,

which is somebody is protecting, they're protecting their position. And if I'm the writer and that's what I do and that's what I bring to the party and you're changing that, then that is something to me that's potentially damaging. What'd you guys do one season of that? We did, yeah, yeah.

We did 13 episodes of it. I had a great time. I really enjoyed it. It was extremely formative. I needed to do that before I could have ever done. It's always sunny. I needed to get that out of my system, I think. I remember you had a,

we may have discussed this in the podcast, but maybe not, but Glenn, you had a pilot offer. You had a pilot offer. So we had made sunny and we weren't sure if we were going to, we wanted to go make it, but you had this real-world offer in front of you and you were trying to figure out whether or not you were going to take it

or test for the show. I do remember there was one sitcom that I'd tested for or gone in for that they really liked me for. This is back in the day when, I think you guys know that I used to do this, but before auditions, if it was something where I wasn't, auditioning's hard and you're a little self-conscious

and I mean, this is a real, it's a dangerous habit to get into, but it worked for me, especially with comedy, with comedy in particular. I was like, I need to be able to go in there and be loose and free. So what I would often do is I would show up with my thermos of coffee

and maybe have like one shot of whiskey mixed in there, but then I realized I'm like, well, now I got to drink the whole coffee to get the shot, so that doesn't make any sense. So then I started bringing, so I'd bring like one of those like little airplane bottles, you know what I mean? And I'd be like, just one little thing,

kind of like the priest does before he gets up and gives a sermon. You guys didn't have priests like that? And it worked. It worked. It would be like, you'd get a little loosey-goosey, you know what I mean? And I remember for this one,

this one that I did, this has happened actually a couple of times, I'm not going to lie, where like I didn't have the airplane, so I just kind of poured it into a container and then brought it to the audition and then I would just right before the thing. And then there were a couple of occasions

where it was like, oh, and I'd be like, oh, that was, no, that was not one shot. That was like two or three. And, you know, and I remember one of those things that I was up for at that time, they called me in and I'd just been sitting there

kind of looking at my lines and when I stood up to go into the audition, I was like, oh, dokey dokey. Shit. And then I nailed it. I absolutely fucking nailed it and they wanted me to do the show, but I said, no, I've got my own.

Just like that. But now luckily I'm comfortable with myself and I don't have to, I don't feel the need to do that anymore in auditions. The end. Have you been drinking today? No, I haven't. No, I'll probably start at like 3.30, 4.

Great. Wow. It's my day off, you know what I mean? I'm going to get it on. Okay. Now I'm worried about puffing up for the picture. Oh, all the better. All the better.

You want to be a puffy guy. You're counting on it. You're counting on the puff. You know, I'm playing a guy's a little bit of a miserable fuck in some ways. So, you know. He does some puff for sure. Well, it's great because I show up to set

every day cranky and I'm like, well, that's great because this guy's cranky too. So, here we are. You know, it works. Lean into the crank. Just lean into the crankiness, just a little bit more than I already feel

and, you know, the anger, all that. It's all there. It's all there. Anyways, did you guys never do the whole like have a little shoddy poo before going into an audition? Oh, I did. Yeah, I remember auditioning

to get into the Williamstown Theater Festival and I took the bus into New York City. I was still in college and I was like so nervous before the audition. Just so nervous, you know. Yeah. Just being like, I just went across the street

just had like a beer. I mean, I'll probably only have one and just take the edge off. Yeah, exactly. It helps. For sure. And that's why I didn't get any of those jobs. That's why.

It's not because I wasn't good. Yeah, you're too sober. Because I was too sober. That was the problem. Too sober, man. I should have been drinking. If I was drinking. Did you learn anything from Paul Schrader

and he should have been like, so you gotta get all fucked up and write your things. Yeah. How many learned anything from the greats? He kept a gun on his desk. Paul Schrader kept a gun. Awesome.

A fucking gun. He had an office. In case what? Like he gets mad at his computer and he wants to shoot it? Like what the fuck does he have? I didn't ask. I didn't ask.

I didn't ask. I just noticed it. I clocked it. I recognized that it was in the room and I let it go. I think it was like a souvenir from like Taxi Driver. Was it like one of like Travis Pickles' guns?

Could have been. It wasn't displayed in any way. It was just sort of in resting mode. Sort of an implied gentle threat to whoever comes into the room. You know what I mean? It's sort of a power dynamic thing, right? Yeah.

Although I found him to be lovely. I mean, he was strange. Sure, he could be. He had a gun on his desk. Yeah. That's true. That's true. He was very kind and courteous

and ultimately it was not a great experience but not because of our interactions in any way and the gun never came into play. Maybe it was like a check off thing. Isn't that like a check off thing? I don't know. You theater nerds. Well, but that's the,

the check off thing is if you're going to show a gun then it's got to go off. You better go off. Got it. It needs to go off at some point. Otherwise, what was the fucking point? So that was check off. Why did we see that gun?

That's no. Yeah, exactly. We saw a lot of guns in this episode and none of them went off not to bring it back to the episode but that was enough with the O's. Do we not see them up into the ceiling? No.

No, but it is very funny that you all end up with guns at the, at the end of at least Charlie and D I think end up with guns and Frank's always got one. Yeah. That was great that it's like, it's kind of like, oh, that was close. That was close. Cool.

Yeah. And then we ran that horse down. Yeah. Broad Street. Yeah. What was that? Broad Street. Broad Street, was it?

Broad Street, right. You see the Broad Street. It might have been Market, actually. It may have been Market Street. I think it was Market. I think it was Market. It's a major street. I remember it was Market Street.

It was Market Street. Did you get to lock off the street for that? Did you get to shut down the street? Yeah. It was like our, the biggest thing we'd done at the time which was like we shut down a big sort of street and we ran a horse down it and... What a waste of money.

God. It's funny though. We barely used it in the episode. We got cricket in it, you know? Yeah. It's a tag. It's a tag which we don't remember. Exactly.

It wasn't meant to be like, we wouldn't have put aside all that money and time and effort to just shoot a tag. That must have been something that we decided to post, right? Well, I mean, how else would it have played? I think we knew it was going to be a tag, didn't we? Yeah. Good for us.

Good for us. Yeah. Guys. Guess what? Yeah. We're going to do a second advertisement, you know, because everyone loves them so much. So we're going to do another.

They do. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen creeps, we are supported by Athletic Greens. Yeah. So we're going to take a G1 green powder, a product.

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There's legitimately more sugar in a lemon than in a serving of a G1. Mm-hmm. Yep. Can I tell you guys something? Hmm. I like a G1 so much that I brought it all the way to Canada. Oh.

That's dedication. I've already had mine today, by the way. That's why it's empty. But yeah, I got it. I brought it all the way to Canada. This guy, you know, keep me fueled. How are those adaptogens doing you? Good.

I've adapted for the most part to being here, you know, and so is that what they mean by that? Are you a member of the bottle carrying club there? Are you more of a fan of the powder or the bottle? Yeah, no. I mean, the powder itself is an absolute A plus, but the bottle's not too shabby either. I mean, you can creep on the size here.

Look at this. It's actually perfectly proportioned to the amount of A G1 that you need each day. And it's smaller than most shake bottles, so you can easily stow it or fly with it between countries, you know? So that sounds like the ultimate travel companion. Is that what we're saying here?

Well, I'll tell you what. It does work to support better sleep quality and recovery, which honestly is a paramount when you're out of town or changing time zones. We can't say paramount, Glenn, because our show's on Disney. So cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. To make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one year supply of immune supporting vitamin D

and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com slash sunny. Again, that is athleticgreens.com slash sunny to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. Peter nincompoop. How'd you come up with that name? Peter nincompoop.

Peter nincompoop. What a funny word. I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. When I moved to Los Angeles, I moved into an apartment in the valley. And when we moved in, there was a refrigerator there.

And the previous tenants had left. They didn't take all of their possessions with them. And the landlord didn't even bother to take it out. And on the refrigerator, there was a drawing of a horse by a child with a magnet on it. And all it said was synchro scaly face was the name of the horse. And I remember thinking, that is bizarre. What's the story behind this?

It's a child who came up with the name and then spelled out synchro scaly face. And I remember being in the writer's room and pitching that as the name of the horse and everybody was very confused. But then recognize that coming up with a funny name for it would work. And somebody threw out Peter.

And then we added nincompoop. And that was it. It's better than synchro scaly face for sure. Absolutely. Exactly. Why was the horse, why did the horse have scales? I don't know. Was it David Cronenberg's kid?

You know what I mean? Was it David Cronenberg living in that apartment for a short period of time in LA? Synchro scaly face. It just seems like something he would come up with. I don't know. Nincompoop. I tried to look up the origins of that word last night

because I was like, where the hell did that word come from? It's unclear. Unclear. A couple of explanations as to where the nincom part comes from but where the poop comes in, I have no idea. So I think it's just absolute gibberish. But it's lovely. It's good gibberish.

It's good gibberish. Yeah. Cocaine. I was thinking of episode ideas. Maybe we could discuss them now and the creeps the listeners could weigh in on which ones they might want to see. Well, you've got some ideas. I was going to pitch a couple of ideas to you.

What do you think? Yeah. You don't even want to hear the idea? I sure do. Sure. So what we've been talking about having Mr. David Hornsby on the show and maybe finding the best episode, but I know the Cricket's Tale isn't for so long.

And David's been a huge part of it. Oh, these are pitches for podcast episodes. Yes. Oh, I thought you were talking about sunny episodes too. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Podcast episodes. My mind's all about the podcast right now.

That's great. So if we did a David Hornsby episode, it might be fun to cut together a Cricket's greatest hits. That's what we're doing. And we could watch. Oh, you're already doing that. Yes. Meghan's already having it.

Well, as soon as I get access to 15 seasons of high-def versions of the episodes, which I'm working on now, but yeah, we're trying to do that. Great. And maybe we could do a watch party with David and talk about each one. Okay, Meg's already got Meg's already on. We're in sync.

I was thinking it might be fun. I launched, as you guys are aware, I launched a tech entertainment company today and I tweeted it out and it's just getting a lot of expected hate. And it's really kind of fun. And it made me think, man, we've gotten a lot of, we've gotten hate over the years. We've got our trolls.

Wouldn't it be fun to maybe, I don't know, like just reading the tweets is that fun, but taking calls of criticism, the idea of opening up the lines and letting people call in. God, it's great. I love it. I love that. Yeah, call in and tell us directly, like what's,

what are we doing wrong? Let us have it. Yeah. Yeah, really let us have it. And they have to, besides hiring women. Oh, hiring women. I want to hear about somebody getting very upset about hiring women.

We got badgered into it. They don't like it. They don't. So you're saying have a platform for people to air their grievances. Yes, but directly to us, at us and for us. We can do that. And for me personally, I have no boundaries.

If they want to get as personal as possible, they can. I feel, I feel comfortable have engaging in those, in those conversations. I think, I think that'd be sure. Yeah, bring it. Yeah. What are we doing wrong?

Where did we get, Megan? I had a version of this before that we had talked about, about actually a whole podcast that revolved around it, but bringing on various creators and having people call in and talk about how they hated their shows or if they love their shows where they went off the rails. I think that's what I've been most interested in. Megan, I may have made a pilot of this.

We call it thanks for engaging. And it was with Damon Lindelof and it was fucking amazing. It was amazing. She tracked down, she and Mara tracked down, this was like a year ago, tracked down people who just absolutely hated, like loved, lost, but hated the ending or just hated Watchmen and they just hammered him. And they did the same for us, for me, for Sunny,

but it didn't have the same sting. Yeah. Well, love the way any show ends. When a show ends, it's naturally unsatisfying, right? Because you're mad. You're mad. Yeah, like the Sopranos, people hated that ending. And Seinfeld, people hated it.

I think people liked the ending of The Shield. I think people enjoyed that the way that was written. That was a great ending. But Breaking Bad is a great example of a show that ended really well, but still, you're left with almost nothing to talk about. And in a way, the Sopranos, for as unsatisfying as it is, continues to live on because you can talk about what your

idea of what happened in the end is. That's just an interesting. I like that. I think also some shows are really built and designed to have a beginning, middle, and end, right? Versus an episodic show like ours, it's a different thing than a movie where it really has three acts, right? Well, Breaking Bad, you're seeing...

We're just chucking out a different episode every week. Totally. You don't see in the Sopranos the first episode isn't him becoming Tony Soprano. He just is Tony Soprano who's going about his day. Whereas Breaking Bad, you watch as he becomes Walter White goes from a teacher to Scarface, basically, and that's what you're watching.

So there is a natural endpoint. And would they do five seasons of that? Something like that, five or six. Six. Six. Breaking Bad, do you mean? Yeah. Yeah, but if it's like a mystery show, then you solve the mystery

and then you're done. But yeah, like Sunny is especially going to be hard for you guys to end because there's not even that much that rolls from episode to episode. So it's not really building to anything like in a way that like even Breaking Bad... That's a mythic quest episode. Somebody's definitely going to make a show called Breaking

Bad and it's going to solve it. Glenn, we've already done it. We have a show called Mr. Quest. Mr. Quest. There's an episode called Breaking Bad. It didn't stop, but I'll send it to you. I'll let you. I'll send you a link.

I'll send you a link. No, it's all right. But the criticism, the criticism call in episode, we should definitely do that. We can have that happen. People call in, yell at you guys about stuff. Yeah. And it could be about anything.

It could be about, it should be about Sunny because that's what the podcast is. But I don't know. Come at us. It'll be fun. Let's do it. Gloves off, maybe. It's like when you do that, if people sort of like quickly drum

up a sort of fake thing versus like getting someone who really has something to say to be like, you know, I really loved when you did this and you stopped doing this and why did you do it? Versus someone who's like, okay, I got to think of something to criticize and then just like coming up with a... Well, so we just hang up on those people immediately. Just hang up on them immediately. There was a curation process that went into it.

That worked pretty well. That Megan Morrow found really great people. They were able to allow for that to not happen. My favorite was that I found some tweets that people had tweeted about like Sunny. And one of my favorite one was, is the dick really worth the three hours of always Sunny? He makes you watch afterwards?

The answer is yes. She was really not into the show at all, but she was into the dick. But there was a guy, the guy that we talked to was from... He was Irish and he was calling from Ireland. He's a massive Sunny fan. Yeah, but he was begging us to stop. Begging us to stop.

He said we ruined the show a long time ago. Stop making it. We've peaked. Not only have we begun to peek, we peaked. It's over. Please stop. Just please stop. And it was really funny.

It's like, well, sir, you have total control over that. Don't watch. The show can end right now for you. Just stop watching. He believes that we were ruining the legacy of the show by continuing to exist, which I thought was a great point of view. He had great points.

He wasn't wrong from his point of view. He pitched an end that wasn't terrible. Remember that? He pitched an end. We were like... Do you know what it was? Yeah. Don't say it though, Matt, because we might use it.

But we're never going to end this show. Not officially.