Category: News

Strange Planet creator Nathan Pyle is teaming up with comedy-legend Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty) to bring his quirky and poignant webcomic to Apple TV+. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Apple has issued a 10-episode, straight-to-series order for an animated series based on Pyle’s webcomic turned best-selling graphic novel. As of right now, no release date has been announced.

In addition to Pyle and Harmon, Amalia Levari (Over the Garden Wall, Bravest Warriors) will be working on Strange Planet as its showrunner. The animated series will be produced by Apple’s in-house studio, with ShadowMachine — the studio behind Netflix’s BoJack Horseman — providing animation. Strange Planet marks the second animated series to get the green light over at Apple TV+, following the musical comedy series Central Park, the second season of which is scheduled to premiere on June 25.

Created in 2019, Nathan Pyle’s Strange Planet is a webcomic that follows vaguely-humanoid, blue aliens that aren’t so different from us. The series draws attention to the bizarre and wholesome things humans do through clever observation and has garnered countless laughs and over 6.1 million followers of the comic on Instagram. Whether the animated series will follow one of these aliens in particular, or be vignettes of different individuals and their stories, has yet to be confirmed.

LFG (HBO Max film) — This documentary film presents an unflinching look at the fight by U.S. women’s soccer team members (Megan Rapinoe, Jessica McDonald, Becky Sauerbrunn, Kelley O’Hara, Sam Mewis, and more) for equal pay. This battle takes a look behind the curtain of the 2019 class-action, gender discrimination lawsuit (filed against the U.S. Soccer Federation) mere months before the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Expect to see the legal fight coverage interspersed with transcendent athleticism while the documentary highlights how these women’s courage will hopefully lead to society-wide change that hasn’t been seen since Title IX.

Epstein’s Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell (Peacock Limited Series) — The alleged ringleader of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking exploits gets the docuseries treatment here. Once a powerful heiress and socialite, this series will explore her world of power, sex, and money (the story is told through unseen Maxwell family footage and dozens of candid interviews) that culminated in her arrest and impending trial on sex trafficking charges.

Holey Moley 3D in 2D (ABC, 9:00pm) — This new season of holes (yes, that’s right) includes a Corny Hole, a North Pole on the Ho Ho Hole, and Holey Matrimony. These puns never get old for the contestants or the audience.

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars: Season 6 (Paramount+) — The global phenomenon is streaming in full-force tonight as 13 contestants return after making a mark across 10 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race. The $100,000 top prize will be up for grabs by Chad Michaels, Alaska Thunderf*ck 5000, Trixie Mattel, Trinity the Tuck, and more.

Godzilla Singular Point (Netflix anime series) — A grad student and an engineer team up to battle an unimaginable and ominous force that could very well bring down the globe. This Godzilla design arrives courtesy of legendary Ghibli animator Eiji Yamamori, and more character designs come from Blue Exorcist‘s Kazue Kato.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Robert Duvall, JP Saxe, John Mayer

Late Night With Seth Meyers — John Cena, Kristen Schaal, Kristina Schiano

The Late Late Show With James Corden — Liam Neeson, Anthony Ramos

In case you missed this streaming pick from last Thursday:

iCarly (Paramount+ series) — This revival series picks up a decade following the beloved Nickelodeon classic with Miranda Cosgrove returning as the title character, who happens to be the O.G. webcast influencer. She’s accompanied by returning stars Jerry Trainor and Nathan Kress, so the whole gang’s getting back together for more comedic mishaps and adventures while fans can enjoy seeing where these characters ended up for a new chapter.

Ben Simmons has become a leading topic around the sports world for the past week after he became the focal point of the Sixers’ collapse against the Hawks. Simmons is an easy target, as his shortcomings are the most obvious of any in basketball, because his greatest weakness is that he can’t (and won’t) shoot the ball.

That came into focus with him posting four straight fourth quarters without a single field goal attempt, with his refusal to take a wide open dunk in Game 7 serving as the shining example of his issues. Many have pointed out that Simmons seems to have a mental block, but Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen, as he so often is, was extremely direct in pointing out what he sees as what is holding Simmons back in a way that others who struggle shooting are able to move past — citing Giannis Antetokounmpo as an example — in a recent interview with Tyler R. Tynes of GQ.

You guys have been looking at Ben Simmons for five years now? And you can say this to Stephen A. Smith, too: Y’all know he can’t shoot. Y’all know he don’t look to shoot in the fourth quarter. You know he’s afraid to go to the foul line, he don’t wanna be humiliated, so what are you asking me? I’m not against Ben Simmons. But I think he is who he is.

I watched a lot of games that Doc [Rivers] shouldn’t have had him in, in the fourth quarter. If I give you a deck of cards and I give you a deuce of heart and a deuce of diamond, and we playing Spades, why you keep grabbing those cards when you know you’re gonna lose in that category? This kid been this way the whole time and Doc brought him in and set him up for failure. He been like this! And you guys know he been like this. And Doc kept putting him in the game, he kept letting that team do fouls on him. Take him out the game! The Lakers did it with Shaq, and he’s bigger and more dominant and probably more fearless than Ben Simmons. Doc made him be a failure.

He’s still a good basketball player. That’s his weakness: shooting the basketball. If you take that away from Ben Simmons, he got no weakness. That’s Giannis’ weakness, too. But, Giannis don’t mind being humiliated. That’s the difference between him and Ben Simmons. Giannis will go to the free throw line and shoot two fucking airballs and come right down the court the next time and try and dunk on you. If Ben Simmons miss a free throw, he gonna start passing it before he get to the free throw line on the other end. He didn’t even wanna cross half court with the basketball because he was so afraid of being humiliated going to that foul line. That’s why he didn’t try to make that dunk at the end of the game. He’s been doing it all year, bro.

You’d be hard pressed to make a real argument against Pippen’s point here, as Simmons certainly seems to want nothing to do with the possibility of free throws in late game situations. The Giannis point is a really interesting one, because it is the closest thing we have to similar star-level player in the NBA. Giannis can be stubborn and defiant to the point of being a detriment to the Bucks with his shooting, but that’s a better problem to have than someone who won’t even attack the rim for fear of getting fouled. As Pippen notes, Simmons is an excellent player, but there are going to be situations where he just might not be able to be out there if he’s not going to push through the possibility of being humiliated at the free throw line.

That’s an understandable thing to want to avoid — no person wants to be embarrassed — but figuring out how to push past it and not let it take you out of your game completely is a necessary step for Simmons to ever break through this current ceiling that seems to be on him. Pippen uses more colorful language and is more direct about it than most would be, but that’s kind of the beauty of having him speak on things. The entire interview is great, as they dive into his relationship with Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and much more.

Could the cold case of the Zodiac Killer finally be solved? If French engineer Fayçal Ziraoui is to be believed, the identity of the infamous serial killer who terrorized Northern California throughout the late ‘60s and into the early ‘70s—and whose story made one hell of a David Fincher movie—has been hiding in plain sight for more than half a century.

Ziraoui, according to The New York Times, has never met a challenge he didn’t want to conquer. “I’ve never set limits on what I can learn,” the Argenteuil, France-based business consultant told the Times. So when he learned, back in December, that there were still two ciphers from the Zodiac that had yet to be solved, he decided that he would be the man to do it. Sounds easy enough…

Fast forward two weeks—yes, two weeks—and Ziraoui claims to have accomplished what he set out to do using an encryption key and some innovative codebreaking skills.

But what exactly does one do when they believe they’ve identified one of the world’s most notorious serial killers, who eluded authorities for decades? Post about it on the internet, obviously. And post he did—to lots of online groups full of armchair detectives just like him and crime websites. The response, however, was not exactly what Ziraoui was expecting. As SFGate reports:

In January, Fayçal Ziraoui began posting on a popular forum where sleuths dissect theories about the Zodiac Killer, who murdered five people in the Bay Area from 1968-69. Ziraoui’s long, detailed posts describe the process by which he says he cracked two of Zodiac’s unsolved ciphers, known as Z13 and Z32. Z13 was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1970 and says “My name is” followed by 13 letters and symbols. Z32 was also received by the Chronicle in 1970, along with a letter threatening to “wipe out a school bus” and an annotated map of Mount Diablo.

Ziraoui used the key that finally unlocked Zodiac’s 340 cipher last December and made a number of substitutions. He says the results came to him in just two weeks. He claims the longer code reads, “LABOR DAY FIND 45.069 NORT 58.719 WEST,” and the shorter one is the name “KAYR,” which Ziraoui deduced is similar to Kane, the name of longtime Zodiac suspect Lawrence Kane.

(KAYR is also kind of close to CRUZ, too, no?)

Though Ziraoui now realizes the err of his ways in attempting to infiltrate a tight-knit community of crime solvers, and brazenly claim that it took him just a few days to solve a puzzle they’ve been attempting to figure out for years, he’s still convinced that he has successfully put the case to rest.

Kane’s name is a familiar one to both police and to those who have followed the case closely. Though he was never officially named as a suspect, one detective—the late Harvey Hines—was convinced of Kane’s guilt, but couldn’t get his bosses to buy it.

Kane, meanwhile, passed away in 2010.

As for Ziraoui: He has determined that cracking the case was the easy part. “The most difficult thing is to convince people.” We’ll raise an Aqua Velva to that!

(Via The New York Times)

Matt Martin, 28, of Dallas, Texas has created a bit of a stir on the internet for writing a piece on marriage published by Love What Matters. Martin is a performer who wrote, directed, and starred in a 2016 version of “Little Mermaid” and wrote 2018’s “Inhumane” starring Michelle Money.

In his piece, the father of young twin boys, stresses that a marriage is between two people (possibly three) and that children should not come first. Martin starts the article by claiming that a marriage is between two people and God and that their relationship should take precedence over all others.

---

“My Aunt Steph, one of the smartest, most blunt people I know, told me before I got married, ‘People say you marry the family too. That’s not true. Your marriage is between you two.’ I’m not saying your family isn’t important. I value my family a lot (not as much as my wife does, but still…). You need them to lean on when life gets hard and to lift you guys up, but I didn’t marry her mom and she didn’t marry my dad. We had to learn to go to each other first when life threw us curveballs, instead of instinctually going to our parents. We’re a family now, and that family comes first.”

Martin believes that being married and having children shouldn’t prevent you from achieving your personal goals. In fact, our partners are here to support us in achieving them.

Personally, I think this is a very important point in a relationship. If your spouse is a hindrance to you achieving your personal goals instead of a source of support, there may be serious troubles in your relationship.

Our pastor told us in a pre-marital counseling session, that as a couple we’d have goals, and as individuals we would have goals. To succeed as a couple, we would both tackle those goals. Sometimes I would be the captain (like when tackling mine) and sometimes Sara would be. But we’d both be working towards that goal. That’s the beauty of marriage. You’ve got this life partner to raise you up. Like Kim and Kanye.

This is the part that has people talking:

A big humongous monstrosity of a lesson I’ve learned that I PRAY that all of you will strongly take into consideration, is that your kids do not come first. Our kids are sooo important and are the future and all that fun jazz, but what’s best for them is a beautiful example of two people who love each other (and God). Another great thing for them to know is that they are not the center of the universe. Sorry if you’re reading this in the future, Jack and Cam and any other children we may have had, but you’re not the center of my universe. Sometimes I’ve wanted you to be really badly, but that’s not going to do you any favors, and it won’t do me any favors when you leave home (please leave home). You can’t put your spouse on the back burner for eighteen years and then say ‘Oh, hey, you can be my number one again.’

Here, Martin makes an important point about parenting. He believes that raising children who believe they are the center of the universe is bad for them in the long run. It’s true. Children who are raised thinking they should be catered to are going to learn some very hard lessons when they become an adult.

When parents cater to a child’s every whim it leads to a sense of entitlement that, as an adult, can result in depression and poor relationships.

The piece stirred up a passionate discussion on the Batdad Facebook page where some agreed that marriage should be the primary relationship in a family, while others think that a child’s needs come first.

Some believe that putting your marriage first creates a better environment where children can thrive.

“A marriage needs to come first. An unstable home is detrimental to children’s psychological and emotional wellbeing. My spouse and I will make our children wait for our attention of we are having a discussion that is important … I prioritize my marriage and my children flourish and thrive because of it,” — Natalie

“I feel like you should put yourself first before your kids. If you aren’t in a good place, it will reflect onto everything else,” — Christine

While others believe that adults should put their needs second to those of their kids.

“Sanctimonious at best…. my wife and I have always put our children first…. we have love and mutual respect for each other and that will never change! But raising our children will always be a priority because it’s a job that transcends anything else…. if you’re married to someone who insists that they are a priority over the children you both brought into this world…. is basically selfish … self absorbed and self centered!” — Jeff

“My kids will always be first. My husband is an adult who can take care of himself and who understands when my kids need me. We still make time to watch movies together and be with each other,” — Olivia

You can read Martin’s entire piece at Love What Matters.

Earlier this month, former president of the National Rifle Association David Keene and pro-gun writer John Lott gave prepared speeches for the graduating class of James Madison Academy in Las Vegas, Nevada. In what they understood to be a dress rehearsal, they spoke to empty chairs about Madison’s writing of the second amendment and encouraged students to push back on gun control legislation.

They didn’t know they were speaking to students at a school that doesn’t exist. And they didn’t know that they would ultimately be giving their speeches to 3,044 empty chairs, representing the students who would have been graduating this year if they hadn’t been killed in acts of gun violence.

Parents of Joaquin Oliver, a student killed in the Parkland school shooting in 2018, orchestrated the dupe to create a series of PSAs about gun violence and the gun lobby. Oliver’s father, Manuel, told Buzzfeed News, “We lost Joaquin three months before his graduation. We know exactly the feeling of being there and receiving the diploma without your kid being there. Because we understand that, we know there are a lot of people going through that same experience right now.”

Here’s the first PSA of “The Lost Class,” showing David Keene speaking interspersed with recordings of 911 calls from people seeking emergency help during school shootings:

---

Lost Class 1/3

www.youtube.com

The effect is haunting. Knowing that the “students” Keene is speaking to about achieving their dreams will never have the chance because they were shot and killed hits home as we hear the terror in the voices of those 911 callers.

The second PSA, featuring John Lott:

The Lost Class 2/3

youtu.be

And the third, featuring Patricia and Manual Oliver, the parents of a school shooting victim, explaining the purpose in putting together the hoax.

The Lost Class 3/3

www.youtube.com

“We are here representing every single kid that is not able to finish high school,” Manuel said.

“People deny the actual reality,” Patricia added. “And we cannot allow them to deny it because this is real. This is happening.”

The powerful PSAs were shared by Change the Ref, the organization the Olivers founded after the Parkland shooting to empower and inspire future leaders to speak out and take action.

“We need to call them out, we need to show everyone — this is how they process the logic behind the gun industry,” Manuel Oliver told Buzzfeed. “We need to show we’re brave and we’re not afraid of these guys. We’ve already felt the worst possible situation. There’s no threat that can make me feel different.”

The Olivers encourage people to sign the petition at thelostclass.com to demand that lawmakers pass laws requiring universal background check laws.

If Keene and Lott had done their own basic background checks when asked to speak to students at James Madison Academy, they could have saved themselves some embarrassment. If implemented properly, universal firearm background checks might actually save lives. It’s gun legislation that the vast majority Americans already support, so hopefully this powerful message will get through to lawmakers, even if it does nothing to convince the gun lobby that their time has passed.

At one point, the 2021 NBA free agent class looked like it was going to be immense, but due to a number of players signing contract extensions, that isn’t necessarily the case. Still, there are some pretty good players who are free to change teams in the coming months, with Spencer Dinwiddie among the names on that list.

Dinwiddie is slated to hit free agency after declining to pick up his player option for the 2021-22 campaign with the Brooklyn Nets. He’d be a good fit for a number of teams that could use a lead ball-handler/playmaker, although according to Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News, Dinwiddie would like one of two things to happen.

Dinwiddie, however, is unlikely to return to the Nets after taking a below-market-value three-year deal worth $34 million. A source told The Daily News the combo guard wants to go home, or “wants the bag.”

“Home is the preferred destination,” the source told The Daily News. “But he wants to secure his financial future, too.”

A native of Los Angeles, it’s not hard to imagine how Dinwiddie would be a great fit on either the Clippers or Lakers, as both teams could use someone who can either initiate the offense or play next to their collections of stars, should he opt to go to one of those teams. Dinwiddie is coming off of a torn ACL that forced him to miss all but three games this season.

Skrillex fans have had to wait six years since the producer’s last official album, though he has shared a number of remixes and collaborations in that time with the likes of Justin Bieber, Diplo, Ty Dolla Sign, Kanye West, FKA Twigs, and more. But the acclaimed beatmaker has recently begun to tease the beginning of a new era of music with a handful of recent singles. Following up on his Four Tet and Starrah collaboration “Butterflies,” Skrillex returns with a haunting visual to accompany the track.

The thumping single provides an eerie atmosphere for the “Butterflies” visual as it follows a close-knit group of ghosts joyfully reuniting and making their way through city streets. Towards the visual’s close, the music cuts out to focus on dialogue between two of the main characters. In the heated exchange, one individual reprimands the other for being unresponsive over text, while the other defends themselves by explaining that they’re struggling with mental health. After a heartwarming embrace, the duo return to moving through their emotive choreography.

The “Butterflies” visual marks Skrillex’s second-released video of the year. It follows his raucous “Too Bizarre” video, which saw the producer returning to his emo roots by throwing a rowdy DIY show featuring Swae Lee and Siiickbrain.

Watch Skrillex’s “Butterflies” video above.

Skrillex is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There are many who would attest that women in hip-hop haven’t always received the recognition and respect they deserve. Today, Cardi B dug into that narrative by shining a light on a comparison between live performances by female and male rappers.

This afternoon, a Twitter user shared a clip of Cardi and Offset’s performance of “Clout” and “Press” at the 2019 BET Awards, which featured an elaborate set, lighting, choreography, and so on. That prompted another user to re-share the video and add, “Unrelated but; I hate how Women rappers can perform & have whole ass choreography routines & still get criticized & picked apart while men rappers just walk around in one circle, jump up & down, giving the bare minimum with no criticism @ all.”

Cardi seemed to be in agreement with that take, because she shared the tweet and added, “Female rappers have to bust their ass on performances ,great visuals,hours on make up ,hours on hair ,pressure by the public to look perfect,make great music and yet are The most disrespected.It’s always they not good enough,what’s new? It’s boring,Why her not me.”

Meanwhile, Cardi’s latest film, F9, premieres in theaters this week, and the good news for Cardi fans is that she’s set to appear in the next Fast & Furious movie, too.

Revisit Cardi’s 2019 BET Awards performance in full below.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

When the last episode of Conan airs on TBS tonight, it’ll be a pause that feels a lot like a stop. The truth is, no one knows what Conan O’Brien will do with his announced new HBO Max series (which is set to debut in 2022). We have no idea about budgets, scale, ambition, or connection to past things like “Conan Without Borders.” And with that uncertainty, we have to accept that whatever comes next may not include Andy Richter, Conan’s longtime sidekick and comedy consigliere. We have to accept it because it sounds like Richter has.

To be honest, I went into our Monday conversation unclear about how much Richter would or could say about the future knowing that nothing had been announced officially. But right at the start, he mentioned the word unemployed and spoke about how he’s going on auditions, attached to a game show concept, developing ideas, and potentially looking to get back into directing commercials, which he’s dabbled in previously. Officially, he’s in wait-and-see mode as it pertains to another ride beside O’Brien. It really does seem to depend on what the idea is, which sounds like the healthiest thing in the world if you divorce yourself from how much you love the two of them together and want to see more.

While Richter seems to be in a good place about his future (“I’ve had my moments of like, ‘Holy shit, this show is ending!’ But it’s mostly just having faith in things working out okay, and looking forward to new opportunities”), he doesn’t quite know how to deal with all the kind words people are saying about the show, the legacy, and what he and O’Brien have done on TBS and on NBC before it. Which is a shame, because we talked about that a fair bit and, more specifically, how the show managed to stay flexible, fresh, and relevant to various age groups.

So you’re not continuing on with the new show in any capacity, or is that still up in the air?

It’s up in the air because they can’t settle on what the new show is. That’s the source of the… I don’t know, the lack of information. It’s just that there isn’t any information. It’s nothing… And nobody’s attempting to deceive anybody, and there’s not anything really interesting [laughs]… besides just a difference in what the next show should be and what will work.

Are you interested in continuing on or you’re just going to wait and see what it is?

Wait and see. I mean, that’s just how I do things, that’s how I’ve always done things. I don’t know if it’s my improv background, but I just wait and see what happens and then make the decision when it’s time to make the decision and try not to sweat it too much until that time.

Is your 3 Questions podcast still something that’s going to continue on?

Yes. In fact, we’re coming up on our hundredth episode. We’re probably going to do some kind of clip show, and they’ve been asking me like, “What are your favorite clips?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” It’s like, I talk to people for probably 150 hours, somebody else tell me which ones were the best.

How have things changed for you with your relationship to the podcast during the pandemic?

Well, it’s yet another thing to do at home on the computer. [Laughs] There’s more of a connection when you’re in the studio with somebody talking about this stuff. Over the computer, it’s nice, it’s convenient, people do feel safe and you can’t… I mean, it’s not like my podcast is attempting to get people to spill their guts about stuff they don’t want to spill their guts about, but it is a podcast that begs a little bit of introspection from its guests. Being at home can kind of help that, but it can also, with the computer, be yet another line of defense to keep things on a surface level. I mean the point of the podcast isn’t just… Like I say, it’s introspection and self-reflection. I like it best when somebody says, “Oh gosh, I never really considered that that thing happening to me is possibly why I’m like this.” That’s just a very magical little process there that I enjoy in my own life, and I enjoy when I’m there when people do it.

I mean, it’s a needed thing. Think there’s so much access to everyone who creates anything, celebrities on social media and everything, but it’s always surface.

Yeah.

So getting to actually dig in a little bit deeper into things… Which is something I’ve enjoyed about the format change on Conan, as well. It’s not a five-minute anecdote and let’s go play flip cup. It’s a much more informative vibe if you’re looking to get to know the whole story behind certain things.

There is a similarity, the longer interviews on Conan do allow people… And by people, I mean, all the people involved, because when Conan had to break everything up into four to six-minute chunks, he was always looking for a laugh line because he knows that he’s got to throw to commercial. So it made it difficult for him to be inside a conversation. Whereas now we can go as long as we want, it gets edited and it does allow people to take more time, for him to take more time, for him to follow tangents and for the conversation to take on a life of its own. And the people having the conversation stop thinking about having the conversation and just start having the conversation.

It feels like Conan specifically had been aching for that kind of experience for a while with Serious Jibber Jabber and now his podcast (Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend). Is it possible that we wouldn’t be seeing this kind of format change if not for those podcasts (and web series) because it gives him an outlet for that kind of conversation?

Probably. I mean, that’d be a question for Conan, but I would say, yeah. I mean if I were a detective, I would say that’s a pretty strong connection there. The things all happened concurrently, so I think, yeah, that’s probably a pretty good bet. But there’s also just a natural evolution of things in that having done the same kind of show for so long, and it always being… I mean, we desire short, punchy things. I mean, television has evolved to be this very short, punchy thing. But then outside television, in terms of interview things, there are all kinds of long, meandering, organic things happening. I know Conan was tired of having six-minute conversations and having to chop things off in the middle. And he likes to talk to people. It’s one of his favorite things, so he’s getting to do it in, as I said, a more authentic way now.

What have these last few weeks been like with the official rundown of the show?

I think there was so much stuff to do. A lot of great old friends have come by to visit. And it was only last night because we’re taping the shows the night before, so we taped tonight’s show last night, and a couple of the talent executives were like, “How sad are we? What level are we? Like 1 to 10, how sad are we?” We all know it’s coming. We all know that the melancholy is coming because we’ve never had… I guess between The Tonight Show and the TBS show, there was not knowing what was going to happen, but we knew pretty much that Conan would get a talk show on another network. Whereas now going into the HBO Max thing and talking about different kinds of formats that might happen, it’s all so nebulous, that there’s a lot of people there that have worked there for going on 30 years. I mean, people like our stage manager started as a PA. He started out just running errands and now he’s our stage manager, and he’s been there the entire time.

People throw, “We’re like a family,” around and it’s usually bullshit, but there are people on that show that I feel are like a cousin or something, like really, seriously. They’ve been in my life for so long and a bunch of us play golf together and hang out together, and we’ve done different social things together. It’s certainly more than a coworker with a lot of people there. So yeah, it’s weird. A lot of the people there too, they worked for Conan and they were in New York. And when Conan came out to do The Tonight Show, they moved to LA so they’re in LA because of Conan. And by Conan, I mean the show more so than the person. But so, yeah, it’s dozens of people who are having a chapter change in their life.

How much do you look back on the actual on-air product that you guys have done and the bits, not just the camaraderie and the things that nobody sees?

Well, I mean, in an instance like this time, it matters a lot. Bill Hader was on the show and we taped it, and he mentioned finding us in high school. Like going over to a friend’s house and his friend was taping the show on VHS, and they would watch it in the afternoons. And Bill was like, “It was my first show that was mine,” and he said, “The first show that my parents didn’t understand,” and that’s really something. That’s like if you’re a baseball player, that’s like young baseball players telling you, “I looked up to you and the team that you were on, and that’s the kind of baseball I wanted to play.”

That’s what this is. It’s like, people like me, who had the same sort of professional or artistic aspirations, seeing this thing that I’m a part of, and it imprinting on them, the way that they wanted to then lead their professional, artistic life. That’s pretty significant. In terms of just having your work appreciated, that’s pretty great. Because I mean, I know money’s generated by it and stuff, but it’s all pretty silly. We’re not curing cancer. We are doing something important and making people laugh, and that is about as direct an expression of happiness as you get to, but it is still kinda silliness.

It’s amazing. I remember during the pandemic I did a thing on this one-off episode of the CBS 12:30 show that Adam Pally and Ben Schwartz did. And there was like a 10-minute section of the conversation with them where we started just talking about you guys and how much we worshiped you guys, both of you guys. Again, it was like kids talking about their favorite baseball player. It’s amazing the impact that you guys have had.

Yeah, and it’s weird. I mean, I don’t live inside my career and inside showbiz. I live in my house with my dog and my kids, and phone calls from my sister about my mom, and I just live in my life. So all of this stuff, it’s slightly overwhelming. Like, I don’t quite know what to do with it all. Except to feel proud and everything. It’s like some of the best people in comedy right now are spending some time saying how influential that our show, and then by proxy, me, has been. And like I say, I just have to think, “Gosh, that’s nice,” and then I don’t know what else to do with it [Laughs]. So I put it aside and maybe I’ll think about it in 20 years or something.

It must feel like you’re at your own wake to a certain extent.

Yeah, it is like that. The first time when I left the Conan show in 2000 to come out here and try my hand at sitcoms, there was a big sendoff for me, and it made me so nervous to the point of having to take anti-anxiety pills because I felt enraged just by the attention. Because it’s not my thing. I’m the sidekick for a reason. You know? [Laughs] I’m not the host because that’s just not the way I’m built, and I don’t want that. And so it was just a really weird thing when I felt like I was the bride at the wedding and the wedding just kept going on, and on, and on. It was too much for me. It’s not my thing. I just feel like, go look at somebody else for a little while, leave me alone. It’s much lessened now, and it’s not just about me. Yeah, but it is like these periods of being the topic of the conversation, especially in a meta way. Like, “Let’s look at what you mean not just right now, but in the scope of things.” It’s like, “Oh, why do we have to?”

This show still means something to people that are younger. I’m in my 30s, it means something to me and to people that are in their 20s. It means something to people that are teenagers. I’ll give you my five-cent wisdom: I think the reason for that is the versatility of the show and the ability to morph and be different things for different eras. What’s the secret sauce of the show’s enduring appeal?

Well, I think it’s because we never… I mean, there might have been some sort of overarching philosophy at different points, but to me, it always just felt like “let’s fill those [guest and comedy] slots with the funniest things that we can find.” It was always just in the pursuit of the well-built component of the show, then making a well-built show. And that’s all just based on sense of humor and taste. And that is something where, one of my biggest contributions to the show is that I am kind of the consigliere during rehearsal, and people who come to rehearsal can see this. Sometimes the writers don’t like me very much because I can be not exactly political. I mean, not rude, but if there’s a bit that I don’t think works…

Direct, you can be direct.

Yeah, I’m direct because I’ve been through it. I’ve been rejected and it’s like, if somebody doesn’t like a bit you wrote, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. You’ve just got to be like, “Alright, it’s not going to work.” And it’s all subjective anyway, there’s somebody in charge or a couple of people in charge, and you have to live by their rules because otherwise, you’re going to spend all day arguing about, “No, this is funny.” You just need somebody in charge to go, “Yes, no, yes, no.”

Conan and I are the yes, no, at this point. And our head writer, Matt O’Brien too, but it’s really Conan and I that are the last step of the quality control process before it goes out the door. And a lot of times he’ll just say to me, “What do you think?” And I’ll go, “Eh,” and he’ll go, “Yeah, eh.” And that’s just, in that little process right there, and this is where I will toot my own horn, which is a very non-Midwestern thing to do. That process right there is why our show is still funny. Because I think Conan and I still are excellent producers of television comedy, and we still can sort through the ideas and make it good.

There’s a version of this show in an alternate universe or whatever, that is still doing the masturbating bear and everything. And that’s the era that I grew up with, and I love that era. But it’s very interesting how you get from George Wendt and John Goodman leg wrestling in the first episode to where Conan’s going to Haiti or you guys are doing longer form interviews. How has that happened? Because there are a lot of people that don’t evolve in terms of what they find funny and you guys have.

I don’t know, I guess we did it right. [Laughs] You know what I mean? For me personally, my sense of humor… I have been on Twitter for whatever, 10 or 12 years, and aside from an ability to talk about current events and talk about serious things now and then, Twitter is a joke writers’ club that I go hang out at, and I have a bunch of joke writer friends. So I am in some kind of mainstream of weirdo joke writing.

It’s also kind of learning the evolution of the zeitgeist of comedy, where it’s “that’s not funny anymore.” And simple things that old people bitch about all the time, but like, “no, you can’t use that word anymore.” I get it, you used to use the word and you used it thoughtlessly. And I mean, you pick the word, I don’t even mean necessarily the most evil words. I mean, just lots of words. And you just learn like, “Oh, that’s hurting somebody. Oh, okay, I can use another word.” Or “making this kind of joke is hurtful to people and I’ve made them before, but okay, well, I can make other kinds of jokes.” I just think that he and I never stopped thinking like, “Well, I can compete in the marketplace of funny ideas, and I want to stay in touch with it and I want to stay current with it.” There are a lot of people that I think, don’t. But I also think a lot of those people are scared that they’re going to run out of ideas, and that’s never been anything that has plagued us. It’s always like, “Well, we’ll always have something… We’re wise asses that always have something funny to say about something.”

And we’re funny people to be around. There are a lot of comedians that aren’t that funny to be around. They’re funny on stage and they think of really great stuff, but they’re just not that interested in being funny, whereas Conan and I are trying to entertain people all the time. Not all the time, but pretty much all the time. If you come hang out at our show, and people will say this, interns and stuff, it’s a fun place. We’re trying to have fun and make each other laugh, and I don’t know, that’s just something that we’ve held onto. And I do know that that’s something that some people stopped doing. They don’t enjoy it anymore, and it’s just kind of… We still want to crack up and giggle in church, just still want to be the ones that are whispering jokes to each other in the corner and making each other laugh.

I think there are people that get precious about, “No, this is who I am. The funny comes to me, I don’t go to the funny,” I think you guys go to the funny, is that maybe accurate?

Absolutely, absolutely. And also too, there is a very destructive phenomenon that occurs and it is not being told no for years and years and years. You get to a certain level of fame and money and achievement, and people just start to cater to you, and you don’t really get a lot of pushback on things. We never really… It starts with Conan, you’ve seen the things with Conan and his assistant. He has surrounded himself with people that take the piss out of him. If he ever gets too puffed up, he is surrounded by people that he has given pins to, who will pop his balloon. It’s an incredibly healthy way to live and an incredibly healthy way to exist, especially in this fucking weird world of showbiz, but especially talk shows where if you are a talk show host, you have agreed to basically hand over your personality to become a product, that is then packaged up in 16 different ways and sent out every day. It can make you weird and it can make you crazy, and I think there are lots of examples that anyone could easily come up with without thinking too hard. He has never done that. He’s had me to make fun of him. He’s had Sona to make fun of him. He’s had writers to make fun of him. And he gets his licks in too.