The Always Sunny Podcast - The Nightman Cometh (with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Cormac Bluestone!)

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Trying to get it right in that skull where it stays forever.

assaulted See, you know, I too love, like, musical cedar re-sounding, like, phrasings, like, that's very, like, song-like, I think. What? Which is? Like, this little chord. I don't know. I mean, I don't know enough about music to know, but I feel like this is, like, I saw

him in the woods. Standing alone in the woods. Did he see you, Carol? No. I tried to look his way, but he turned and said goodbye. I'm sure we'll meet again one day. But how? Maybe I will pass him on the subway, and he'll look my way, but he's blind.

Maybe he can smell me or he'll sense me, but he also lost his nose in the war. Then he'll rub up and he'll feel me. But he lost his sense of feel. See, it ain't that hard. Come on. Come on. Some other stuff, some other musical stuff. Now, who are you?

Who am I? Have we started? We have a guy here. We have a guy here. There's a guy here. We have a guy here. That's Jimmy Doyle. It's season one.

That's right. And season eight. Oh, yeah. Eight for the high school reunion. Was that what it was? Seven. It was seven. It was seven.

French little beauties. Because Mac was fat. Can we see Cormac's face or is his mic too high? I want to make sure we're getting all that beautiful look. Yeah, there you go. There we go. You got it. I'm Cormac Bluestone.

Yeah. Resident composer of the guitarist side of Philadelphia. Yes. Long time pal. I'm so excited to be here. I just got to say that I'm so excited to finally meet you. Me? Yeah.

You. And I just, I, you know, it's just, I never thought I'd be in the room with like the three of you again, just like with the pandemic and everything. And so much has changed. So. You never thought we'd be in a room together again? I think one of us has got power. One of us has got power.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to say you, but the odds were late. We've established it wouldn't be Charlie because he's the, the healthiest of all. Did we? We did. We did.

I won. We did. We did. I won in the sense that you win the competition and get all the points. We are here today to talk about the night man cometh, which I had forgotten to watch until this morning. I was like, oh right. I should watch it.

Me too. I did the same thing. I forgot. And I was like, oh shit. I need to. And I have to say, I thought I just knew it all. I was like, well, I know it so well, but there are lots of surprises in there. Again, I think one of the best episodes we've done, I think fans have reacted to it in that

way. Let me give just a little information about it. So we know, of course, everybody knows. There is structure. We do have a tiny bit of structure. We forget about it, but there is structure to the podcast. Yeah. Now, Megan has insisted.

You do such a good job on this thing, but I don't know what the story is. Don't come on here and get her head. Thank you. Don't. I really appreciate that. It's already hard to get her head through the door. Nightmare and Cometh is season four, episode 13. It aired on November 20th, 2008, which means next year around this time, it'll be 15 years

since it aired. It was written by Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhaney, and directed by Matt Shackman. And music composed by Cormac Bluestone. And Charlie. In so many ways, it feels like it was yesterday. I feel like we just shot that. I have so many memories of shooting that episode, and it was 15 years ago. But I want to talk about how that thing begins, unless you guys have got something else you

want to put on the table. How the episode begins, or how we conceived of it? Both, because they're connected. Yes. Yes, they are. The way the episode begins, you know, I'm in the back room and you hear me start singing a song like, come one, come all for a... To a beautiful show.

To a beautiful show. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be awesome. And all that stuff. Some other musical stuff. And then you guys are icing me out. And it's a whole conversation of, why would you write a musical just to write a musical? Who is it against?

What's the... Who's the mark? And of course, ultimately, there is a ulterior motive in the episode. But that came out of the fact. Do you guys remember when we were trying to break this episode? Oh yeah. We had a whole... There's a whole other storyline that got broken that we decided to exercise.

Yeah. At one point, we were kicking around like they were trying to break into a bank or something for a specific reason. And the musical was a distraction while they were jumping back and forth doing this other thing. The other version of it was that there was a rival bar. There was a bar that we had some kind of a prank war thing going with. And they had pulled some kind of a prank on us and we were going to pull the ultimate

prank by... But we needed them out of their bar. And in order to do that, we created a musical and that we were all in the musical because that would prove that we couldn't have done what they're saying we did because we were all on stage. And then we were going to do a whole thing where like whenever someone was off stage, they'd be going over to the rival bar to like... So that was the ulterior motive.

And then... And we were sort of obsessed with this idea of like, well, we can't just do a musical for no reason. Like there's got to be some other reason why we're doing it. So then we just decided, well, let's just write that in. I never knew that about what that other story, but just like as I've been thinking about this episode, so many things like fold in on itself, because I don't know if you guys remember when we did the tour of Nightman Cometh, we showed an episode during that tour.

And it was the gang reignites the rivalry, which sounds like that storyline. Yeah, you're right. I never put that together. I never thought about that because I do think that we had always had this thing in mind of like, we should have some kind of a rivalry with like a younger bar, you know? And yeah, I never put that together that... No storyline gets wasted. No.

They all get done eventually. It gets finished one season. It goes on a card and then it comes out eventually. It gets recycled. We'll get around to it eventually. I was delighted with all the rehearsal scenes before the play, so I think what I really remembered from the episode was the play and the performance, but the rehearsals was like... Yeah.

Because we changed a lot of it. I think what's probably seared into our memories more than anything is the live shows, because that's the most recent stuff that we did, even though it wasn't that far removed from shooting the episode. We had, there was a whole song, there's a whole Nightman song that we had to cut from the episode because the episode was just too long. We had to lose some stuff that made its way into the live show. It's Nature Shit Happens.

It's Nature Shit Happens. It's Nature Shit Happens. Got cut as well. My song. Troll in my hole. Oh, right. There was it, right, right, right. There was a whole thing at the end where I made the transformation.

We wrote that song for the tour because we just felt we were short when we first had to perform at the Trugador. But you also had that song. It's the opening song. The opening song. Right. Where I'm like, where I'm, he's like spinning me around. You like find your voice in it, like you jump up this, I got a troll in my hole.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah, right. There was it. That was it. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. There was a whole thing at the end where I made the transformation. It was the opening song. It's the opening song. Right. Right.

Up. Up. My whole of an apartment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I control your soul. That's my department. Everywhere there's trolls. A whole of an apartment

Like a troll in his home That's my department Everywhere there's trolls, yeah Living in your shit home Where they can shit all their balls Make you rub their fat rolls Make it scrub their balls This and more

He's got a troll in his home I would love to hear from your perspective what your journey was What was the first time we contacted you? What was the first piece of information you were given? Did we give you a script first? Had you written music before our show before this episode? Never had written music I'd never watched TV before

But yeah, I'd never written music before Sunny I'd never picked up a guitar Yeah, I'd never written for Sunny It was my first thing I was totally writing musical theater And Charlie came to a show I'd been doing a show for years in New York And wanted to move to LA

I brought kind of the best of it And Charlie saw the show and he was like It was, you know, bar hoppers Is that before you knew each other? No, this is, we knew each other This was in LA, like at the St. Nick's Pub Oh my god, St. Nick's And Charlie after the show was like

Oh, that was really good, you know We're about to do this musical episode You did not mean it this way But you're like, we were going to hire a professional But we should hire you That sounds like something Charlie would do You would say it in a different way You don't think I would have said

You know, like you I think you would word it differently But it's one of those things You know, because I knew you I think you guys written the script You were in pre-production for it And you talked to these two And sent me a script

And you're like, come in tomorrow Come into Fox And we'll sit down and go through everything And I was like, okay, I got to take my shot I wrote drafts of all the music And then I came in and I recorded it on a CD And then You and me sat in a room

For, I don't know, four or five hours And kind of took all our ideas And mashed them together I think I had like Loose versions of some of the songs You had really strong ideas Like, I listened to them And I'm like, this was all

Like, little boy, tiny boy, little boy You were like, oh, it's got to be song timing I was like, it needs a little form Well, how do you guys know each other? William Stone, summer of 1997 Where all of your friends come from Where all my friends come from, yeah Two of friends, it says

And Hornsby would say that same summer Hornsby, yeah And then right after When I first moved to the city I had an apartment on my own for a year And then with another buddy And then the year after I lived on Cormac's floor For

As long as they possibly could until they got rid of me I was like, get out There was a lot of that with you too Well, it was a studio apartment too It was like a room and a bathroom And so this dude in a sleeping bag On a wood floor We did a lot of jamming out

A lot of writing funny songs together We've played a lot of music together Yeah, we've played a lot of music together So when we were doing it I'm sure in my mind I was like, yeah, if Cormac wants to come on And help sort of arrange these In a way that

I have a limitation I can do some chords and be like, here's a melody Now, what are the nine other parts doing? Do you remember In terms of the songs And what they were about and some of the lyrics I mean, we were involved In some of that, right?

Because we were writing the episode together But I don't remember How involved Rob and I were In the conceiving Of the lyrics of the songs I don't remember any of that because I would imagine a lot because it's all

Tied in, right? I mean, there's the dialogue Backstage about You're going for gasp and that's all I think that was all scripted I remember talking about the Subjects of the songs And then they would go off and I remember

Coming up with and talking about just to be clear We were trying to figure out what would be a fun song For Dee She would just write Which I definitely remember also A few years later That's how the Birds of War Is the same idea

Which is do a song and then Make the song about clarifying what the song Is actually about Clarifying what you mean by the song That song I love And also in a similar vein The very first song that Charlie was referring to That he comes out singing

Come One, Come All to a Beautiful Show Was that scripted? Or was that just you making that song? I don't think that was scripted Come One, Come All to a Beautiful Show I think the script was You came out and said I wrote a musical Yeah, I think so

I think that was like We need something more What can we do here? A couple things Wait, I'm eating because I'm uncomfortable That was an improv, right? Or was that scripted? That's

My favorite line There's a lot of Baby Snickers stuff In there Baby Snickers run Just in the live show Or there was a Baby Snickers run in the episode There was a lot in the episode I was watching last night That I thought

There was more in the episode Than it actually is And a lot of it we cut out and put into Gagriels A lot of it was just in the live show And so we have this hazy memory of what The episode was and it wasn't One of the things I love is just how straight

All those rehearsal scenes are played I'm obviously bouncing off the walls But not in a comedic way And it's all very natural And very small I like that too We're not playing it for lives There's a genuine confusion about

The Boy Soul thing Whether the scene is about a rape It's all Yeah, it's all played very grounded Dennis, can you take a five? Just a little detail of how you're holding Your hand when you're doing that feels so specific I'd like you to take a five

I don't know why, but I remember Working on that, there were so many different versions Of that where we just kept going back and forth With a five And it would be a five A five only? All five Please be gone for five

There's so many specifics there In those rehearsal scenes that feel like they're taken From The kind of people that you meet In small town theater Artemis, please do not speak to the talent Also, I love a little detail about Artemis When you say, I could have Artemis do the song

In her head pop song And she is so ready to do it Look, she's dying to be in the play That was a big impetus Behind wanting to do this episode Was wanting to mess around with the dynamics Of community theater, like having all come From theater, we were like

Let's do a thing where we get to insert Some of the things that we remember From sort of the corniness of like I remember that's where the gum bit came from Are you chewing gum? He said no gum The teacher's pet was always like He said no gum

Also Those were often done with Just someone playing a piano Like there was no like orchestra And the woman that we got Gladys Who then Dennis recruited to play His grandmother in the Dennis system

The same actress But she came on and just started Improving and just talking about Whatever she was saying It's in the bloopers I have those bloopers Those are always just fun I've been sniffing at me all morning

I've told a cool story like a hundred times Play it, Dennis I get down Come on I can't do this Trying to stand it I've been through the Coolidge Administration, but I never thought

At my 99 years of age I would be with such beautiful people Gladys, we don't have time For like disco Don't sniff at me You've been sniffing at me all morning Look how much fun she's had What a delight

What an absolute delight she was May LeBord The play Gladys She was born on May 13th, 1909 And she started her acting career At the age of 93 And the absolute pinnacle is her Flipping through the pages when Dee sings her own song

And saying what is happening Best delivery Of one of our most iconic lines That we've written into a thousand episodes What is happening? No one has ever delivered it Better than she did She was amazing

Descending on a sun I stole that from Sweet and Low Down Where Sean Penn descends on a moon And there's a great sequence where He wants to He's making this big deal about He's down on this moon

And then he gets like He's really proud of it And then the stagehand comes by And he's like that's a hell of a drop Man can break his neck And then he gets like nervous And his descent is so like I was watching that because I couldn't remember

If I did drop down or if I didn't We cut away, but we like cut away We cut away so quick I know that we do I'm coming down on it and you see it for like half a shot I think you're strapped to it so you had to Cut to get unstrapped You get unstrapped and then come off

A technical thing So remember there was a big debate About whether we would sing this Live while recording it Or we would lip sync to pre-recorded versions of the song Right That was one of my first things I think I said When I came on because I had so much experience

And stuff. I was like we got to do it live And it was so funny When we did it It's just so much harder to do it live No one ever does it. Our playback guy On the episode You got to have a click track You got to make sure that the rhythm is the same

Those two pieces are really expensive too It's tough editing wise The playback guy, he had a couple Emmys He did like the Scrubs musical The Drew Carey musical and he kept saying to me What are you guys doing? You do the pre-records And you lip sync. This is Ridiculous. During editing I was getting calls

Like they don't know what to do with any of this How does this all go together, blah blah blah What we cut together was a mixture Of us singing live When we were filming and The pre-recorded stuff. As I recall We spent a tremendous amount of time While the mixer

Spent a tremendous amount of time Like, yeah But the live performance Aspect of it is what makes it so funny Like if it was polished, it wouldn't be funny It's the fact that it's unpolished And people are singing off key And those musicals that you're talking about

The episode itself Becomes a musical So the Scrubs for example And you'd need that to be polished And we've done versions of that on this particular show But this where you're putting on a performance You have to do it live I think these were the exact conversations

We were having See, this is why we don't hire a professional That's right Have you figured out that first Christmas present yet? Well, look no further than Down, that's right Down there at your underwear Are you telling us to give people our underwear

As a gift? Cause that seems... No, I'm saying get them a new pair From me undies Could I give some of my current undies if they are me undies? Why would you even ask that? Well, because of my experience Me undies are the absolute snuggliest Most comfortable undies in the game

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Is a homage to When I was in college And I decided I want to start doing plays There was a theater club Not a program, there was like a club And they did plays in like a church basement And the guy who ran it Was a guy named Tom Kirkman

He used to be a priest But he wasn't a priest anymore Or maybe he still was, I don't know But a lovely guy I really appreciate him Putting me in plays But he always wore A little sailor's cap

And his thing and he wore boots And he would go He would breathe through his teeth Like after rehearsal and he would go That was Awesome Magic That was his style, anyways

The story fizzles out but A little tipped old Tom Kirkman So I owe him a debt of gratitude What about Trotol? Where did that come from? Tiny Baby Boy Came A little bit from the musical I used to do

With Hornsby Paperboy So up at Williamstown Hornsby and I used to improv this musical About a Paperboy Music City And Tiny Boy Was loosely based on a song called Happy Thoughts Or kind of funny thoughts

He gets a girlfriend and he's having kind of funny thoughts And then the song gets darker and darker Where they're like I'm asking Robert Bank And kind of funny thoughts We'll shoot the clerk and they're like Yeah, let's shoot the clerk Is playing against a sweet song

And then Trotol was the same Where Jimmy the Paperboy Wines up in a bad part of town And he's just like, oh, it's homeless people Who was the first one who realized That hole and soul When boys hole and boys Soul, who put that together first?

That's soul and hole sound I remember us talking about that In the writer's room for sure That was definitely something that Was like a big laugh in the writer's room Seems like a martyr's room rose out there That is such a funny one You watch this episode

It's like one of those episodes You're like, this is from that episode This is from that episode It's just like wall to wall The jokes, the songs and musical It's great, but there's just so much From this episode That we had in there

I believe we discussed this before Who was that audience? An audience of people who had never heard of the show Seen the show, they thought maybe they were there To watch a play I don't think we warned them, we just did it And I think there was a lot of confusion A lot of confusion

Nobody found it funny They were being forced to laugh Imagine if you had no context For what it was that you were about to watch And then all of a sudden It was sent to you I think we did run it From start to finish

We just performed the play And then it is what it is And then we did pickups later And we shot it like a live show And then we went in for coverage And shot each moment and each scene Like we would in a normal episode As I recall

Those cat eyes, you can't see a goddamn thing In the live show you just painted your eyelids Because you can't see with those cat eyes You can't see anything And they're just scratching your eyes You couldn't see through them They give you just a tiny little eye hole So you can kind of get this out

But really it just feels like there's something It moves around And it feels like it's just scratching your eye the whole time So I remember when we did TrollToll I had written this little baseline That you came in with And you had to talk And snap at the same time

And I remember You were struggling with that I remember Also you wanted him to snap But don't And I was like in between But what's so great about Cormac is He's so patient

So for an hour I'm trying to do this thing and he's like You're doing great, there's no way I'm doing great After an hour Well that's so funny because I remember Every time I saw him at the start I'd be off stage going really big But you're stage moming him

Well here I am 14 years later I realized you couldn't see me I'm just like But just knowing you were there made me feel bad Also you had to write That's so funny I remember you writing that whole bomb And then you had to do a very specific thing

Just to get Danny into the song Which was like Like here is coming Your time to start singing I do remember that I knew when to come in I'd written a draft of Troll Toll It was this loungey thing

And you're like no no no And I was like Yeah we're doing this for Danny And I was like oh it's like a little blues thing Of course it just put all the onus on Danny Like so many of the songs Are just lyric lyric Lyric lyric

Lyric lyric It's just like jam packed wall to wall But yeah Every night on the tour Every night he would hit that But we had the whole band Like just guys four And everyone just go one two three

You got it Well I want to get into all the music As you pointed out Cormac There's so much in this episode to get to And to that end I was really nervous that I wouldn't ask all the questions Like a big fan of this episode Would ask

So are you guys ready for the super fan After singing the song Alright we'll just bring out Our super fan Lin-Manuel Miranda Hi Hey man Nice to meet you

Oh man Wow Holy shit Ah A treat Are you familiar With musicals Do you have any sort of sense

Long time first time Yes I love this episode And I have so many questions I'm so glad we have the composer here too Wait we have to talk about you for a minute I have to talk about you for a minute So I saw Hamilton

We were talking about Hamilton yesterday It was so exciting we were talking about it yesterday And I was looking over at Megan and was like Ah this is going to be so good I had no idea you were going to be here I was saying like If you didn't see it without Lin-Manuel playing You didn't see the musical playing

And so I'm there We're in New York and we're watching the play And I'm looking at you and you're like Performing I'm like I feel like this dude is looking right at me But I'm like he can't He can't see me I took my cat eye lenses out

And then when It came time for the bow You were doing the bow and the whole place was going nuts Of course And you point at me and Mary Elizabeth and you go Holy shit Charlie in the waitress Yeah and you said it during I said it in the bow was like on stage

From everybody else There's 1,400 other people There on my way and I was like Charlie in the waitress And then we went backstage and we saw you And you were amazing And you love John Bon Jovi waiting That guy in the wait

Bob Bon Jovi I think that's who it was We should turn bovine Everyone had to wait If I had more presence of mind I would have turned to you and said I was that baby boy That little baby boy was me

Well So you're saying that we inspired you I think is where we're getting to This is a snake eating its tail I came to thank you for all of it All the inspiration Well The nice thing about you being here

Is that you can answer once and for all Does anyone write a musical for no reason Or is it always verses Yeah it's always verses What's the con? The long con For Hamilton and it was a 6 year grift No Who were you writing that verses

I guess Jefferson I wanted to ask you guys about your History with theater Musical theater because I know for me That was the place where I found Any crust of cool in high school And it was the place where

I could exist outside my grade And I could exist You could collaborate on something That was not just the drudgery And horror of high school So I was wondering You guys have chops I was watching the live episode

On the way here and the hole inside My apartment bonus song where you're just Wailing like Freddie Mercury You guys have to have done musicals In school I did a lot of musicals I want to hear the entire Biologist

I did a bunch of really random musicals That most people have never heard of I did a musical called Star Mites Do you know this musical? That's like a very cult flop musical I don't know it I did a musical called Celebration

It was a team that wrote The Fantastics Henrik and A Little Night Music Oh shit That was by far the hardest Because I had to I had to play the cello While singing an extraordinarily Difficult song

I was playing the cello And I was like oh my god It was crushingly difficult Harder than The Nightman Cometh Much harder than The Nightman Cometh And Charlie what's your musical background Because to me your musical background These things just make sense to me

Which is one of the best Both my parents are music teachers My mom taught kindergarten through eighth grade And my dad was a college professor And growing up I remember my mom Doing some Productions of

She put on like HMS Pinafore And the Mikado And And the Wiz And I was too young to be in these things But I remember the eighth grade kids were doing these plays And I would see them So I was introduced to it

Then in second grade We did a James Sorry when you say she put on She was the musical director of the school She was a music teacher You're going to Mrs. Day's class for kindergarten through eighth grade So then I did

James the Giant Peach And I sang that song like Smile though your heart is breaking Or whatever So the first time I had to sit and do a song And then I had to do shit Until high school My senior year which I did South Pacific

But you were playing music Oh yeah I started I kind of rebelled against it And then once I got into high school I picked up the guitar and started writing little things But you started that wasn't your first instrument Were you playing trumpet or something? I played trombone

And then I did trombone And then I picked up the guitar And I sort of half learned that And then back to the piano But then I get to college And I do Sonheim's Into the Woods And I'm just like the guy who goes

Like the slotted spoon can catch the potato Were you the narrator? Nope just like a guy Just a guy But then I started like Do you remember the Bravo Channel Of course Before it was all this reality show

They would play plays They had Into the Woods on there It was like on a lot And I would like get home After like hanging out with my buddies And I'd make myself like a gin and tonic Into the woods This is so good

I didn't think I liked this before And I really like it now And so I don't know The relationship with musicals But also never really been a part of them Like never done one professionally Yeah Don't have a huge desire to

Kind of like like and don't like them Yeah Most people's relationship Can we talk about Steven Sonheim for a second Because he's been referenced so many times On this podcast We talked about him yesterday I know he was a friend of yours

A mentor of yours He just passed this past year Past November, yeah And I think our audience would probably I don't know how How big a fans of musicals Our audience is, but I know Steven Sonheim only from what I've heard

About him from you guys And I've watched musicals my whole life But I never realized what a Like Massive Piece of musical theater Steven Sonheim has like given to This culture, correct? He was like

Yeah I don't know what the analog would be In another, it would be like Scorsese for film Or it would be Spielberg for film Like he just redefined it on his terms And The crazy thing about

One of the most remarkable things I think about Steven Sonheim's career is that his mentor Was Oscar Hammerstein in the second Like adopt, not like only mentor But adopted dad He dropped him off at Oscar Hammerstein's house They were neighbors and he was just like I don't want to leave, don't make me go back to my mom

Can I hang out with you? And he always said If Hammerstein were a butcher, I'd be a butcher So he's mentored by like half of Rogers and Hammerstein But his shows are totally different You know Rogers and Hammerstein wrote like Oklahoma And South Pacific and these

Sound of music, like these very like Wholesome It kind of defined what musical theater was But they were also these very naturalistic Musicals and Sonheim took that And wrote Sweeney Todd about a homicidal Barber or a presidential Assassin musical and he just

You know, I think the lesson Of Sonheim's career is one First of all, it's like variety Like he never repeated himself And two, he just Never, he always just kind of Took what you would say Is like, that can't be a musical

And he would turn that into like the best musical Which of course Brings us back to the nightmare Coincides with like the 70s Just in general, like what film is doing You know, where you have like the movies of the 50s And you have a lot of happy endings Or you know, a much more kind of big

Polish thing and then the 70s people start Being like, actually the guy's just going A motorcycle ride across the country and then They're shot to death, you know what I mean? I think it really was a reflection of who he was One of the things Oscar Told him in one of his early musicals He started showing Oscar stuff when he was like 15 years old

Was you're trying to write like me Don't write like me, if you write what interests you Like you'll be ahead of everybody else That was his big advice to Young Steven Sonheim How do you feel about that? I mean do you Probably agree with that sentiment Clearly, I mean I know that that for us

Was always our guiding principle Was, you know, let's just do what we think Is funny and hope that other people like it You know, because it's our best shot at Making something original There's only us, you know We're the only people that could conceive of Something that only we can conceive of, so let's do that

To bring it back to the Nightman cometh, you're talking about pursuing Just kind of what you love And making that to keep things original What's interesting to me about this Is it's a musical that you guys made And you, usually I imagine You workshop musicals in front of audience

So you have some idea of how they're going to hit Once you get to like the big venues But you guys made and recorded A musical and released it to the world In its fully finished form The only way that it will ever exist And I have a follow up question about this Because it also emerged on what looks

Like the most insane chicken scratch Pile of paper And then gets translated By Artemis Into English So I'm curious how you guys Worked out the musical among yourselves Like how do you find

Boys' hole, boys' hole I mean, the beauty of what we're doing Is like You have an absolute Bailout parachute with the joke Right, which means we don't have to do anything In earnest, which means that we can Fall right flat on our face

Like, yeah, sure, there's a piece of me that's always like Yeah, I'd like to write a musical, that'd be fun I don't have the guts And balls to actually write a musical And put it in front of the world, but if I write a musical That's a joke about musicals, then I'm safe Right, and kind of like Our show is such a good

Sort of Like Play box for Sandbox, like playground for Kind of trying things, which is like I'd like to write a David Bowie-esque rock song I can do it on our show, or like I want to try an English accent, but it can be bad

Yeah, yeah, yeah I do have a question about the English accent Which is your accent as the Night Man It's a very David Bowie To me Here's your Toe Troll Yeah, I have no idea I'm just trying to keep up

I'm just trying to keep up There's something quiet about it That's very like David Bowie as Gareth Well, love is your Toe Troll That's what I was going for That's going for Bowie and Labyrinth Thank you

Do you want to write another musical? Yeah, he's always writing You're never going to not write musicals Yeah, that's, I've worked really hard To get good at it And so I want to keep doing it But the thing is always like finding the idea That pursues you

Like it can't just be You know, I've written ideas where I've Written my way and I go, I think I'm done Like I'm not interested in pursuing This anymore That's what's so kind of beautiful about This episode is you can tell I mean, just in the context of the story

Charlie was possessed By an idea and he saw it Like he actually did something Very impressive and the Side of Charlie that this unlocks in the episode Like when he is screaming At D I mean, we have never seen Charlie like that

Full theater tyrant So explain to me Where the full theater tyrant came from Well, I think that's just a funny concept But he's just so powerful And Charlie's never really Powerful That's a dynamic that happens in the theater

Like I'm sure Glenn, you've seen it In the Juilliard days where it's this Extreme tension about this ridiculous thing That people are doing But also underneath it He's trying to get this girl to marry him And he's got everything riding on him He's like, I need this play to be good

Because it's my last shot I'm gonna propose to this one There's moments where your IQ goes up 100 points Like when he goes turn the page over Nothing That's when you'll sing That is brutal This I want to play

This section Charlie, this is my big song Yeah Everybody else has a big song, I deserve to have one Don't screw me like this Don't screw you Oh, I'm sorry D Let me try to remember something

Did D write a musical and come to Charlie with it? No Charlie wrote a musical and came to D with it And the gang And the gang likes to screw it up And make it about themselves And take it away from Charlie So let me tell you something D

Let me break down a scenario for you I could cut the song Because I wrote it I could have Artemis do the song Or I could strap out a wig And I could do the song myself So you tell me What to do? A song?

Or no song? I could find a thing happens when you're doing a scene like that Where I'm just screaming at Caitlin Right? And I feel her feeling screamed at Like I can feel her starting to be like Well, he is, whether it's the actor Or the character

This man is fucking screaming at me And I can't like Soften that blow, I can't be like Alright, let me back it off a little bit Because she's getting upset, like I gotta stick in it And turn the nice side of my brain off That's funny Because you're giving her exactly what she needs

As an actor by doing it I know, I know You're like, I'm upsetting her This is abusive in a way Yeah, but of course in Caitlin's mind She's like, oh, this is great I am getting screamed at That's how I'm supposed to be reacting

She plays it great There's nothing more abusive than the level of stalking That goes on in this particular episode Of stalking the waitress And even in the end When you're like, well, I'm coming I didn't sign anything, so I'm coming back tomorrow That is sinister

Completely wrong And yet people have really used that song As a proposal song I've seen YouTube videos of people Literally proposing in real life We gotta put that in the podcast Here Will you marry me?

Won't you come on stage and join me? In this game called Will you come on stage and join me? As you were saying You wrote it with this out Which is, it's supposed to be funny It's not supposed to be that good And yet everybody loves it

They love the songs But isn't a joke It's the power of music I'm sure you have experienced this That it reaches people beyond What Now I'm doing George Bush thing It's raging to your soul

I don't know It can just tap it like that I didn't know anything about Hamilton When I went to go see it I just heard it was a hit I didn't know anything about you I went to go see it After the play I'm like

We're rapping 10 minutes to get to a rap And then by the end It was a completely It's primal That hit me in a way That very few pieces of art Actually have

Something about the power of combining music To whatever If you nail it right I know it hits you in a totally different way Even in our goofy We're doing a silly bad musical The songs stick with people I'm so allergic to

Meta musicals Their own genre We're commenting on the fact we're doing a musical Isn't it so hilarious that we are breaking into song I kind of generally Hate that shit Stop apologizing for the thing you clearly love To do

That doesn't come across in this episode What comes across is that Charlie Earnestly Came out of him And he's using it Of course for sinister ends But it doesn't ever feel like You guys are commenting that musicals are bad

It feels like Charlie is inept At making what he wants to have happen And the vanity Of your characters Is always going to offend you Stage freeze The joke isn't that musicals are bad

The joke is that we're bad at doing them And you sabotage yourself We're not making fun of Of the show When the nightman comes out And he's finally doing his Ernest awesome karate And they're laughing

It's such a dejected little Side I also love the little moment where Dennis is backing up To grab the gun And you don't want to turn around and grab it Because you want it to be subtle So what you do is you flail around behind you For someone holding it

Just through the door for you That's a little detail. I think that It brings up like it invokes Such high school productions And it's so nostalgic to watch Even the sets and the way that the couch Is painted onto the wall It just has and then

Contrasting that with the subject matter That you're talking about It's so dark Do you write on piano? Yeah, I can't play trombone I don't write on trombone No, I only ever learned piano I took piano lessons as a kid

I have my keyboard hooked up to my computer And I wrote in Heights like on GarageBand Like used that to arrange it and then Graduated to logic For the subsequent shows Can we talk about your process for a little bit? Because I found it fascinating when we were

In New York, we went out to dinner And we went to see a comedy show And then I got to get home And it was fascinating, he said this to me at dinner Said I can't stay out too late tonight Because I got to get home Because my boss is expecting me to deliver A song by the end of the day tomorrow

And I thought he was joking and I laughed And he was very serious and I was like Who's your boss? He's my boss! You were earnest and so far as you had To deliver this to your boss and I was like Who's your boss? And it's the head of music at Disney

What's his name? Disney and I was writing a song For an assignment for him And I just found that fascinating Because to me if there's any artist In the world living right now Who doesn't have a boss However

But I found it interesting Obviously you're respectful of somebody who's paying you You're a professional And they have an expectation of delivery But beyond that It almost felt like you enjoyed the constraint Of knowing that you had to get something done Is that a part of your process?

I think this says more Equal amount about you that it does about me That you are fixated on my having a boss Because you're like I'm instantly resentful of anyone Who would call themselves my boss Yes We're Rob's boss, aren't you?

We just don't You don't have to say it I love a deadline That's what I love And when I'm working on something We're going to meet about what I write every week That's the best way for me to get anything done That was how

And the heights got written, how Hamilton got written When I started writing Hamilton It took me a few months to write the opening song It took me a year to write the second song Which was half just not writing the song And half just me Not committing to finishing it And it wasn't until

Tommy Cale got involved and was like Let's just put a date Where you're going to perform as many songs from Hamilton As you can And we'll just commit to that Seven months from now and I wrote 11 songs That tells me that I need a deadline To get anything done

Because then you can just keep chipping away At something at a certain point and you're like Okay, I have to move on And only when you've moved on from it Can you go back to it and be like It's not as bad as I thought it was Or it's even better And also I'm sure you guys are familiar with this

My favorite part of the process Like here it is, like guts out Like what do we think, what's confusing What could be better, what did you like What didn't make sense And I'm sure that's how you guys work too In terms of like... I think this is a great lesson for young artists

And people who are trying to get into creating Anything is the idea of iteration We talk about this quite a bit Which is oftentimes People are afraid to put out To show people what it is that they're working on At early stages because they want to perfect it Not realizing that there is no perfection

And like so much a part of any collaborative art Is to get other people's opinions And if you don't put that If you don't have either an external Party who's putting on that limitation Or those guardrails of saying We need it by this date Then you have to do it internally and just say

Look, by this date I'm going to show it to people And there's no, that's not a failure If someone says, oh that's pretty good But what if you try this or what if you try that That's all a part of the process Or the greatest in the world at it Like to hear that, I think, like an audience member To hear that, that you also fear that

And also will sit down Yet at an early stage And show it to somebody and take notes I think is really inspiring, yeah You say Price of my war Now that one, that fucking number Which is so fucking, all that, the king's

Numbers are so good Did those come quickly, writing wise? Those came away from the piano The tune in my head I was actually on my honeymoon when I wrote King George's song Really? Yeah, I was on an island In the South Pacific with my wife There was not a piano anywhere

How do you do that? It's just in your head? Well, I think the reason it's so catchy And again, like your own Bullshit becomes a part of your process Like, for me I don't have very good piano chops So a melody has to survive my chops You know, and so like

That song was so catchy, it had to survive So two weeks I was on vacation And stay in my head And I wrote down the words as like I put words to the melody once it was in my head And they were pretty close to what the final words would be But I just sang it to myself And it had to survive

No, no, it just had to survive And I think that's why it's the catchy song It was just stuck in my head for two weeks But it's an interesting song to write on your honeymoon Because it's about a very dysfunctional relationship Yeah, well, but it's also a breakup song That's true It's actually a breakup song

It's like, no, you'll be back You're stuck with me So maybe Let's not look too deeply into that Yeah, it's my perfect song Every now and then, it won't even be on I'll just like start singing it I don't know why

It's just in there for life now, I think That's how a lot of us feel about the Nightman cover Yeah, yeah, yeah It really is Trying to get it right in that skull where it stays forever Charlie does have an act for writing very catchy Melodies Or catchy things that just grab you right away

It could have been a good commercial jingle Yeah, yeah, for sure The lyrics, too, I think Are so catchy And almost because they're so not specific I'm thinking specifically of the last Song If you want to marry men

Will you marry me? Like the little things that are added in It's not even man, it's man If you want to marry man If you want to marry man Those things When you wrote that, did you mean Were you calling her man?

If you want to marry man Or was it like, if you want to marry man I knew it would be funny as both It's also like a bad lyric But it's calling her man, which is also weird Please say yes, but do not bone me Do not bone me What I love is that it's

The beginning has the rigorousness of Akantana, there's like a chord for every note It's like dun dun dun dun dun It just gets, it's like very like Fuged like almost, and then it goes To the like craziest Hard rock plays, like That's because we don't know what to do

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To take ownership over your health And pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance These things just make sense to him Yeah, it just makes sense to him It makes no sense to me It sounds like a James Taylor song Like it's so beautiful Without the lyrics on top

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh But, uh, the Tiny Boy Baby Boy Is a total song I rip off With those kind of chords? Right, because it's a two-chord jam But the chord on top is very major seven Major seven, yeah Well, I don't know these words you're saying

That's the thing that, this is why I never pursued music. Cause all that shit, I can't, I can't get that shit. Oh yeah, that's perfect. You could. It's just names for what you're doing. Right, right, right. That's really all it is. Yeah.

Right, isn't that it? Yeah. It goes. It goes. Wait, can I ask you something again? Cause this name keeps coming up. What is it about that that makes it sound like Sondheim? Because it sounds like, no, it's,

it's Sondheim would never use like a major chord when he could do like a weird seventh chord or a second or a fourth. Like he just did interesting voicings. At the end of the woods is why that kind of like, or like, you know, you know, those kind of chords. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. You would know, but. Yeah. Or maybe this is what I was doing before. Yeah, it's that. We're in the woods. I wish. I'm going walking, I'm in the woods.

I'm looking for a little pulter now. Like it's like, it's all that kind of shit. What was his take on the boy's whole life? I'm looking for a hole. A hole in the hole. Any hole is for a rabbit. I don't need rabbit. So wait, but take me from you finding that very

Sondheimian right hand to the call and response of, ooh. Well, that was Cormac. Tiny boy, little boy, baby boy, I need you. Tiny boy, little boy, I want to touch you boy. If you only knew what I'd do to you. If I was that boy that's inside of you. It's also in Walt's time. And it's a Walt.

Yeah, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. I think if I knew all the things you're supposed to know, I wouldn't be able to do it. And that's like where your dynamic comes in great. So I can be like, okay, here's some, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know? I was like, what is Glenn doing on stage at this point? So we added these little oo's and those,

and he did the helicopter. If you only knew. There's a new discovery. There's a new discovery. Even though you're singing them in high voice, they're deadly earnest lyrics. If you only knew what I'd do to you. If I was that boy that's inside of you.

It's inside of you, baby boy, I need you. That's like 80s, like metal lyrics. Like that is so earned, that's journey. If you only knew what I'd do to you. But setting up this is insane. Yes, yeah. If you've come for insane, you've come to the right place. Also, so much of what I love about this episode is,

you know, those rehearsal scenes before the music will begin sets up so many jokes that pay off, like Dennis and Mack switching. And then that paying off in like the hug that they do that's very awkward. It's a sexually charged hug. It's a sexually charged embrace. But setting up those things and the D

wanting to throw in a song and then having those things all like pay off during the musical. I have a question about, did you guys write D's solo or is that? Gormick did write that, yeah. Which is that we knew it should have some kind of melody. I think we wrote the lyrics and then. We wrote the lyrics.

I know we came up with the idea of just to be clear, like clarifying, you know, the previous song. And I think it's written it more like a song like, just to be clear, I did not write that song and would never have sex with a child. Just to be clear, just to be clear. It sounds like a Taylor Swift song. No, over the map.

I was thinking about when we were writing this, one of my concerns when we were kind of writing it was, I hope we're not, our goal here is not, we're trying to write a bad musical, bad. I think we're trying to write a bad musical as well as we can. As well as try. No, no, the muse has visited Charlie.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's because there's the piece of me that is dying to be in musicals, sing songs, write songs. And then there's the piece of me that's too insecure to ever like really pursue it. So it's that sweet spot of like, well, if I just earnestly do it and then we make it funny, then you can get away with it. But like.

Can we talk about the troll toll song? And what that is sort of modeled after. And is there like anything special about coming up with that? I mean, obviously, soul and boy's soul and. Yeah, boy's soul. It is a two lyric song and yet devastatingly effective. Yes, yeah. Got to pay the troll toll to get into the boy's soul.

And then they say, what's that name? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you said. What you said. So I have to find the form of this thing. I just was just playing the chords I knew.

And so I was like, okay, the, you know, the major chords are the love songs and the minor chords are the bad guy, you know? So it was, yeah, it was like as simple as like. A bluesy kind of like. I heard that. I was like, oh, this is a blues. Right.

It's, it's St. James infirmary, right? Don't let me in the troll to me. Ah. Yeah. Don't. Don't. Yeah. Yeah.

What you said. Yeah. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. To like, fat over.

That's a good thing to, that can work in any musical really. Just saying, what'd you say? What you saying? Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah. Every green. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then what was, what was Danny's reaction to this? How was, what was his level of? Danny was gung ho to do it, but he, to the little. I, I, it's the craziest story. And I'll say it as quickly as possible because I'd met Danny a few times, but so we show up at the high school because we did this whole thing at one location. And the night before I was nervous, I was like,

what else can I give these guys to really make it click? And I thought, lyric sheets, we have the script, we have the music, lyric sheets, just the song, a page with lyrics. Right. So I sent that off to the second AD and they printed them out and I meet Danny and we run the song once or twice and I turn around to my piano player and I said,

but Danny, let's do it one more time. This time, and I turn back and he's halfway out the door and on his way out, he grabs some papers off my music stand and just takes everything and disappeared for the rest of the day. And of course, and I thought, I, I thought you were all messing with me because I swear to God, every single cast member and every single crew member all day were asking me,

hey, any more of those lyric sheets around? And Danny had just taken them out the door. So of course Danny like slays at the next day. Slays at the next day when we record. Cut to a year later when we did the tour or when we were rehearsing for the troubadour. I go, we all went over to his house to do this first rehearsal.

I bring my piano player in, Rhea like brings us into his, to their piano and she's like, oh, you can just clear some stuff off and work here. And I remember picking up a book and there were all the lyric sheets and music marked up. He brought it home. He'd worked on it, which is like, why do you have to take everybody's case?

Obviously, why don't you be just a little quirks, you know? This is a nice little, one of us to fail. Yeah, one of us to fail, yeah. He's the goat, man. I mean, he like, he worked on that stuff and he's so amazing. He like, just killed that stuff. And seeing that stuff at his home, like a year later,

I was like, oh, this is a guy, like, he wanted to rehearse it nude in the 70s. That's what you do. That's what you do. You know, he was also, you know, one of the most delightful things about Danny is he still continues to approach things like with a youthful exuberance, you know what I mean? Like, he's okay to not be necessarily the best

at something as long as he's having fun. Like, he just has this like childlike exploration. You see that in the scene where he gets assigned to the troll and he's so excited. Yeah. One of our comedy tricks is always like trying to subvert the expectation. So you're expecting him to be pissed that he's going to be

the troll and like offended. Yeah, right, right. The second he's excited, you're like, well, there's Jeff, right. His entire social media presence is based on him taking pictures of his feet in different locations and calling a troll foot in New York, troll foot in Paris. And it's just that, that's how much he's embraced it. Did that come before or after the musical?

That came after the musical. That was that. Yeah, well after. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. David becomes Night Man. Danny DeVito became troll. He became a troll.

Troll man, troll. I mean, this episode was truly the first, this was our way to understand how the audience at large was experiencing the show. Because there was no social media at the time. There was no, we were making a television show. So we did nothing live. We had no indicators as to whether or not people

were watching the show or enjoying it. We had no interaction with fans other than out on the street or like Nielsen ratings. Yeah, yeah. So the very first time we performed this was at the Troubadour and it was mind blowing. We had people who knew every lyric to every song. They knew every line in the episode

and they were laughing before we were delivering them to work in television and to be able to go out and to perform live. What a gift. What a gift that you get to see on a nightly basis how things are being received. It's fun. Although I guess when you're doing a play,

obviously people aren't singing along. Have you played some concerts or some venues where people have had the opportunity to sing along? I went to a show in London of Hamilton six months ago. The entire theater sang every single song. Oh really? Everybody knows about it. Well, that's awesome.

Hamilton was a really interesting case because I remember when no one knew the words, when we started previews and people were going out and sort of talking about the show and watching that front row slowly become like the live teleprompters over the course of the first year because we didn't release the cast album till like a month after we opened on Broadway.

And that was our ambassador more than the show was. You know, you can only serve 1,400 people at a time on a given night. But then the way that album went out into the world was really like totally unexpected. And then it went from like, we're showing you our new show to reading on Twitter like whatever line I fucked up that night.

They're like, we saw tonight and he fucked up this line. That's the downside of audience feedback. Well, that's both sides, right? Is there another example, and forgive me for not knowing, but like of the person who's writing the musicals, starring in them, like has that been, I mean, I'm sure it's been done a few times, but like, what? Do, I'm not sure.

But you're talking about in a theater setting. Yeah, like Broadway setting. Big Broadway hits where the person is also the writer. There, it was very much the case in the beginning of musical theory, like George M. Cohen famously did that. Like he wrote Yankee Doodle Dandy and starred in Yankee Doodle Dandy. And then there were, and now it's more of a thing,

like again, like Sara Bareilles, like when it wrote Waitress then went into Waitress, she's amazing in it. There's a young theater writer named Shayna Taub, who's like incredible in starring in her own shows. So, yes, but it's rare. It's part of what's so electric about seeing the performance, right? It's like, yeah, but I mean, for me,

the hope is always that it lives beyond me. Like, you know, that's the hope is you just write something really good that lasts. I love In the Heights, and I remember seeing that. I remember thinking, what's gonna happen when this guy leaves the show? And I mean, it's a terrific show. It lives on, the movie's awesome.

But I remember seeing you and thinking, what happens when Lin-Manuel leaves the show? He becomes the Piragua guy, right? Yeah, I just get older and get a guy and I play the Piragua guy. And then when you were at a drive-in, about to get into a fight, the words of the Piragua guy will calm you down.

That is what we're listening to. You heard that story? I did. Yeah, I did. We were listening to In the Heights, but we listened to it, and it was Piragua was the song. Okay, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

But he heard Piragua and it brought him back. Yeah, just calmed me down for a second. Yeah, like, it centered me again. And that was the power. I just said, you thought, keep scraping by. And that is the power of your music. Yeah. So, okay, troll toll.

I want to hit every song in this, I'm sorry. No, no, we have to be thorough. So thank you. So we've done Little Baby Boy and Just to Be Clear. So I think Dayman is next to talk about. Right, which was in a previous episode. It was in a previous episode. This was a reprise for Italian Sony fans.

The whole show was built around this particular song, which is really just a chorus twice, which is smart, right? But wait a minute, but when you watch the episode, there's also like, like you're saying other stuff, like it builds to... That was Cormac, so... Like you've got some counterpoint going on. I don't know what Danny exactly is doing,

but like you're doing like day-man-day-man-day-man-day. Yeah. Yeah. Like you did add stuff to it. We, I just, again, it was like, what is everyone doing during this? And I really like harmonic music when everyone's doing stuff.

And so I just arranged it and got there on the day. And I think we cut half of it. Just, I overwrote it and we cut some of it. We added... Cut that, cut that, cut that. I am the ruler of night and darkness and master of bird and song. A master of bird and song, right?

Master of bird. And then D's go on. You are the teacher of bird and man, a winner of contests near and far. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Winner of contests near and far. Master of bird and song. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that was kind of how we like wrapped up the... I also like, it's not part of the song, but the lead-in to that I really love because it's, that song starts the third act. And D gets us up to speed by saying, you once were a boy and now you are a man and I am in love with you. And that just gets us like past.

That's right. It's like, that's the resolution. Now let's get to like the finals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your expression also reminds me of, from the original one, it was, they hate you, night man, and you don't belong to them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yes.

Which was me just riffing on the day. When I miss your coat. That was so bad. So bad, so bad, so bad. So bad, so bad, so bad, so bad. That voice comes back about, oh, well that, at the end where I come down and I sing the final song where,

Explain the tongue in the back of your throat thing you're doing there. It's Christopher Gass. I stole it from Christopher Gass. It's from, from waiting for Goughman, from a scene that I think was cut from waiting for Goughman. So it's in like one of the songs he sings in the outtakes.

It might have been for your thoughts, is it that one? It might have been a penny for your thoughts. Oh God, that's so good. Yeah, one point, or maybe it's in the, a penny for your thoughts, a dime for your dreams. The cut stuff in Goughman is better than most musicals. Well, Goughman is a big Goughman influence in this episode too, right?

Oh yeah, for sure. It's just like the seriousness of a play, that's not good, it's very funny. Right, right, yeah. It's, well that transitions into the last song really, which is your proposal song where you descend, and quite a piece of stagecraft too, where you're descending, like it doesn't seem

like that big of a production, and then you somehow have a son that does that. And it's secret, no one else knows. No one else knows, it's a son. And then Mary Elizabeth's flipping through the pamphlet to be like, wait, there's another song I gotta say through. I thought it was done, yeah, that was done. Now we made a very, very, very big mistake

when we did the live version of this show. We thought we had to stick to the truth of the canon, and in the episode, she says no, of course, and storms out. But when you pack a room full of 3,000 people, and Charlie comes down, and he's singing the song, Will You Marry Me, Will You Marry Me? We put Mary Elizabeth out in the crowd, and we put a spotlight on her,

and we had her say, no, huge mistake. The audience turned on her, the booze were. The booze were angry, didn't get ripped apart, like booze. They were married in real life. Fuck you, yeah, they're already married in real life. She can't marry him, she's married in real life. And then we didn't learn our lesson. Even that, I remember the first time Mary Elizabeth was like,

hey, guys, they're like really vicious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're the safe out here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All we had to do was just have her say yes. Just have her say yes, it doesn't matter, yeah. In the theater, things can happen. In the theater, things can happen in real life. Well, they would've gone crazy.

But I do love, in the episode, after she says no, there's a really sweet moment where Frank says to Charlie, like, she's not worth it, man. Yeah, I like it. He's comforting you. I thought the rave seemed really well. I thought the rave seemed really well. I'm not too sure.

That was a great musical, Charlie. You did a great job. It's game worth it. APPLAUSE Especially nobody just writes a musical for no reason. I am here. I am past here. And by the way, I thought the rave seemed really well.

I am here. I am here with it. And that was awful for me. And if you bring this up back to the apartment tonight, I'm going to smack you. I swear to God. Well, we got to do another season of this show. We're going into season 16.

If you ever want to write a musical for us, I would not possibly presume to improve on this incredible series. It is Disney. It is a Disney show now, so it's all in the family. We could call your boss. That's what I'm calling my boss. We could call your boss Tommy.

Is Tommy his name? Tommy. Tommy. Tommy. When you've known him as long as. Give us Lin-Manuel. We only need him for a week now. Get him off the stage, Tom.

Get him back at Hollywood. Come on, let's write a song right now. These things just make sense to you. No, a rap or something. You may. It's like, yeah. Look, you'll make one-twenty-fifth of what you make now for a week, but it'll be a lot of fun for us.

Yeah. I think it'll be less than that, actually. Less fun. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Less money. He doesn't need the money. We'll work it out with Tom, and Tommy will let him know. Yes.

Your boss will let you know. You don't have a boss. I cannot tell you how mad he got when I said, you don't have a boss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no one in the world. You don't have a boss? I was frustrated for him.

You're a Hamilton. You're a boss. You don't have a boss, man. Can I just break this down for you? You don't have a boss. And then somebody told me when I was at the drive. Is that right? Yeah.

Lin-Manuel doesn't have a boss? I'm going to tell you about his father's debts. But I think you're right. You did rightfully say, like, I think you're talking to yourself, man. Like, you're getting very worked up about this, and I was like, maybe I am. Yeah, it was like sort of just, you're

ready to meet out with Justice. There was no way to meet out with Justice, too. Rob Justice was there. There's no one adult. Rob Justice showed up at our dinner. He ever shows up when you want him. Who told you you have a boss? You want to write Rob Justice real quick?

Come on. I know you can do it. I think it's very telling that somebody else who reached out about Night Man and then became a fan of the show is Bobby Lopez. Is a big fan of Sunny, which is really cool. Like, to hear that too, I mean, Bobby is one of the other giant pillars of musical theater.

Yeah, he wrote Book of Mormon, wrote Frozen. And the fact that he really enjoys what you guys do is awesome. He said, didn't he also do Avenue Q without his first? He said he'd watch Night Man cometh every night. He was in rehearsals for Avenue Q. Oh, my god. Yeah, that's crazy.

It's wild. Yeah. You guys, it's about putting on a show. Like, it hits the same sort of, like, pleasure centers in your brain that Guffman does that, like, yes, they may not be great at it, but they are doing their damnedest to put on a show. Just even down to the costumes, like the ill-fitting

costumes, and she's going to rip the pits, but they can't because they're expensive, and they have to return them. The rentals do not rip that. The cognitive dissonance of D dressed as, like, Princess Peach while holding a coffee thing, like, it doesn't make any sense. She was dressed like Princess Peach.

That was always the idea, right? That was a lot. She was dressed like, yeah. That's the Mario Brothers to Princess. And then the day man being symbolized with a silver, like, onesie and the cod piece. Which is the original day man, the day man, night man. Yeah, that obsession with the.

But just your little improv of taking the thing off him, and you're like, now I'm a man. See? See? I don't have a little see-in. Because it takes a minute to get the reveal. Well, Lynn, this has been an honor to have you here. Cormac, you as well.

Cormac, you're wanting to have you. Could we play us out with some day man? Just a little. Day man? Yeah, play us out. Yeah. See? See ya.

Well, who's going to sing it? Champion of the sun. You're a master of karate and friendship for everyone. Day man. Oh, fighter of the night man. Oh, champion of the sun. Oh, you're a master of karate and friendship for everyone. Day man.

Stage freeze. Stage freeze. Say stage freeze. Just do it. Do it. Do it. Yeah. Day man.

Oh, fighter of the night man. Oh, champion of the sun. Oh, you're a master of karate and friendship for everyone. Day man. Oh, fighter of the night man. Oh, champion of the sun. Oh, you're a master of karate and friendship for everyone. Day man.

Oh, fighter of the night man. Oh, champion of the sun. Oh, you're a master of karate and friendship for everyone. Day man. Stage freeze. Don't say stage freeze. Just do it.