About a month ago, Aaron Dessner teased that there was new material on the way from Big Red Machine, his side project with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. In an Instagram post addressed to a friend, he wrote that he was “literally finishing new @bigredmachineadjv as we speak.” Now he has pulled back the curtain some on the group’s upcoming output: Dessner hosted a livestream yesterday, during which he performed some new songs.
He played six new tracks in total, with four of them credited to Big Red Machine: “Brycie,” “The Gaîté,” “Hoping Then,” and “Latter Days.” One some of them, he performed along to recorded portions of the song.
“Brycie” is named after his twin brother and fellow The National member Bryce, and Dessner said the song is “a love song to my twin, and it’s sort of about… for all these years, Bryce has kind of picked me up whenever I fall or I’ve struggled with depression or some things like a lot of us have.” On “Hoping Then,” Vernon’s vocals could be heard, and Dessner said the song was one of the last ones he and Vernon worked on before self-quarantining.
Dessner said last two songs he performed, “Stella” and “Jenny Kissed Me,” aren’t necessarily for Big Red Machine. He also noted that there are 20 new Big Red Machine songs that have been recorded so far, and that Sharon Van Etten and Anaïs Mitchell contribute to the new material.
Watch Dessner play the new songs above.
Yesterday, BBC teamed up with Comic Relief to air The Big Night In, a fundraising special for coronavirus pandemic relief. One of the highlights of the program was the all-star cover of Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These,” the audio of which was shared ahead of the broadcast. The show included a video of the collaborative performance, and after it aired, Dave Grohl said the project made him “really emotional,” and that it was “one of the hugest moments in my musical life.”
Watch some of the world’s biggest music artists collaborate on an extra special #StayHomeLiveLounge cover of @FooFighters‘ ‘Times Like These’ from their own homes
Find out how to download and donate: https://t.co/m6SN2R5uwH pic.twitter.com/nYnaEHTuZU
— BBC Radio 1 (@BBCR1) April 23, 2020
Following the video’s premiere, Grohl spoke with BBC’s Zoe Ball and said, “I got the call a few weeks ago that BBC are putting together this project, and initially I was so flattered that they would use one of our songs and also that they would have so many incredible artists on it. I got really emotional, it was one of the hugest moments in my musical life. The first thing I thought was, ‘I need vocal lessons, these people are all amazing!’ It’s a song that I wrote at a strange time in my life when I was scared and hopeful, and I think it applies to today.”
Dua Lipa also spoke about the cover, saying, “It’s been really important connecting with friends and family even if we can’t be with each other physically. We’ve been doing everything from home and making it seem so perfect and seamless I’m so honored to have been asked to take part in it.”
Aside from Grohl and Lipa, the cover also featured Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Rita Ora, Sean Paul, Sigrid, Ellie Goulding, Bastille, and others.
Watch the video of the “Times Like These” cover above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Netflix is here to remind us that this lockdown isn’t that bad. Okay fine, it’s hell. But, hell with really good streaming options.
This week, we get Chris Hemsworth in an action flick full of the kind of mind-blowing stunts that might make even his Marvel movies look tame. And comedians Ben Schwartz and Thomas Middleditch reinvent the comedy special with a series of improv shows that prove some guys are just unfairly funny. Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) Netflix this week of April 24.
Extraction (Netflix film streaming 4/24)
Chris Hemsworth gets back in the action with this Russo brothers-produced crime flick about a black market mercenary who accepts a deadly mission that throws him into the chaotic underworld of weapons dealers and drug traffickers. Hemsworth’s antihero type doesn’t mind doing bad sh*t for good money, but when he sells his skills to an imprisoned international crime lord who tasks him with rescuing his kidnapped son, the job quickly spirals into a life-threatening race against the clock.
Middleditch & Schwartz (Netflix special streaming 4/21)
Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz give us the perfect comedy special to lift our spirits during this hellish quarantine. The show is comprised of three improv shows that begin with a Q&A from the live audience and end with the two gifted comedians riffing on everything from aliens to ghost weddings and more. Read this fantastic chat the duo gave to UPROXX if you need more of this weird goodness.
Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:
Avail. 4/18
The Green Hornet
Avail. 4/20
Cooked with Cannabis
The Midnight Gospel
The Vatican Tapes
Avail. 4/21
Bleach: The Assault
Bleach: The Bount
Middleditch & Schwartz
Avail. 4/22
Absurd Planet
Circus of Books
El silencio del pantano
The Plagues of Breslau
The Willoughbys
Win the Wilderness
Avail. 4/23
The House of Flowers : Season 3
Avail. 4/24
After Life: Season 2
Extraction
Hello Ninja: Season 2
Yours Sincerely, Kanan Gill
And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:
Leaving 4/29
National Treasure
Leaving 4/30
A Cinderella Story
A Little Princess
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Blade Runner: The Final Cut
The Craft
Crash
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Dirty Dozen
Dirty Harry
Driving Miss Daisy
Friday the 13th
Good Burger
GoodFellas
The Hangover
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Police Academy
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
Police Academy 3: Back in Training
Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol
Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach
Police Academy 6: City Under Siege
Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow
Rosemary’s Baby
Rounders
Scream 2
Scream 3
The Shawshank Redemption
Space Jam
Spy Kids
Step Brothers
Strictly Ballroom
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
True Grit
Leaving 5/1
John Carter
After eight seasons and four Emmy nominations for Outstanding Drama Series (including one win), Homeland comes to an end this weekend. The Showtime series was once a genuine sensation, but in recent years, it’s settled into a comfortable, occasionally thrilling groove anchored by still-strong performances from Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin, who appeared on Thursday’s episode of The Late Show to discuss the final episode. But before getting into that, let’s have a look at Patinkin’s eyebrows.
Magnificent. Anyway, host Stephen Colbert had the two actors play a game called “There’s No Place Like Homeland,” giving him a chance to “ask as many questions” about the show as he can. Do you bring back Peter Quinn or Max? “What?!?” Danes responded, incredulously. “Impossible.” (The correct answer is Peter Quinn.) Is there any chance Saul is actually the bad guy? “Oh my god, I can’t believe you thought of that Stephen,” Patinkin answered. “You are just… you should have been Carrie Mathison.”
And finally, can you describe the series finale in one word?
Danes: “Conclusive-ish.”
Patinkin: “I would say beginning-ish.”
That’s helpful-ish. The Homeland series finale airs this Sunday on Showtime at 9 p.m. EST. You can watch the (Timothée Chalamet-free) episode trailer below.
The Killers announced recently that their upcoming album, Imploding The Mirage, would be released on May 29. Well, that’s no longer accurate, as press materials note the record “will be receiving a new release date in the coming weeks due to delays in finalizing the album.” The good news is that the band has returned with a new song today: “Fire In Bone,” an upbeat number that’s funky in a Talking Heads sort of way.
Brandon Flowers told NME of the song, “That’s my take on the unicorn entering the room or lightning striking. I’ve been lucky enough to have that experience a lot in my life. I’m grateful and I’m thankful for it, but it reminded me of the first album, when those moments happened a lot. It winks at you and you’re hooked. You just want to chase it.”
He also discussed the band’s upcoming tour in support of the new album, saying, “We want it to be clean, but still have an impact. It’s more about the content and letting the songs do the talking. We’ve got a big band with nine of us on stage. It’s a big sound and it helps build a community. We’ve never felt so close to the audience. Why? It’s beyond me. It starts with the songs and our approach to the way that we present them. I’m not faking it. I believe in these songs and the power of the performance.”
Listen to “Fire In Bone” above.
Seven months ago, Bad Education premiered back at the Toronto Film Festival to great reviews. Now, the thing about a festival like that is its filled to the brim with films jockeying for their Academy Awards position, so it’s tough for a smaller film without distribution to make a splash. But this is a true-life story about a Long Island high school superintendent, Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman), who embezzles over $2 million from his school district. What makes this compelling is that we kind of like Frank. He seems to care about the school and the kids, but what starts as a free breakfast on the school’s dime becomes more and more until the whole thing comes crashing down.
At the time, director Cory Finley had to reconcile that his film (written by Mike Makowsky, who went to the high school depicted) wouldn’t be shown in theaters. Well, smash cut to now and no one has their films in theaters as everyone is scrambling to figure out what to do. Meanwhile, here’s Bad Education with a plum spot this Saturday night for everyone to see it.
Finley is still in New York City and has been busy supporting his girlfriend, who is a medical worker on the front lines of the pandemic — they are only occasionally seeing each other in person in Central Park at a distance of six feet. So, as Finley says, taking a break to talk about movies is a welcome respite.
How are you doing?
I’ve been saying, it’s a rather dull and lonely existence for all of us, so it’s very nice to have a break and talk movies. Where are you? What city or non-city are you in?
I’m speaking to you from Manhattan.
Oh, excellent, so we’re very close. We’re on the Upper West Side.
I’m in the Upper East Side. We’re right across the park from each other.
No way. That’s wild.
We could have met halfway in Central Park and social distanced ourselves and done this.
Exactly. That’s literally what I’m doing with my girlfriend. She’s a psychiatry resident, but like every resident that’s not in medicine, she’s been pushed into medicine for these next two months as overflow. And the whole point of separating is to try to not spread and keep me healthy in case I need to swoop in and take care of her if she falls ill. But we’ve been meeting in the park. And, yeah, taking it very seriously, wearing masks, walking six feet apart, like sort of virtual hugging…
So she’s on the front lines?
She is. Yeah, she’s much braver than me. And I’m just trying to order her groceries and keep her happy and well-stocked as she deals with this.
How is Central Park these days? Is it crowded? Is it not? I haven’t been over there.
It’s dismayingly crowded if you believe in social distancing.
Oh, that’s no good.
Especially yesterday. It was a nice day and we had to get out of there, because it was just so full people. And, yeah, I don’t know, maybe we were being paranoid idiots…
I don’t think you are.
Yeah, it’s tough to find a place to safely social distance outside. I think it’s probably safest just to stay indoors.
Here’s the best compliment I can give your movie…
[Laughs] Oh, great.
I saw it back at the Toronto Film Festival in September. I wasn’t assigned to see it, but it fit in-between two other movies. Anyway, I had this insane toothache…
Ooh.
But I liked the movie so much, that instead of leaving to buy a painkiller, I got a cup of ice at concessions and finished the movie.
Oh, God. That’s horrible! Well, I’m really glad you suffered through it and didn’t leave. I guess, in a sense, the movie is trying to give the audience sort of an emotional toothache and worm under your skin in that way.
But if I didn’t like it, I would have been out of there.
Oh, that’s great. I’m a wuss, so I probably would’ve been out of there even if I loved the movie.
The thing I really enjoyed about this movie so much, it’s this low-stakes story about a Long Island school district, but is presented in high stakes…
Exactly.
Because in their world, these are the highest stakes possible.
Yes, exactly. And yeah, our screenwriter, Mike Makowsky, he grew up there, and he grew up in Roslyn. And he was very into really capturing that kind of granular, provincial inter-neighborhood rivalry that happened that he insists is sort of specific to Long Island. It’s kind of like the fall of the king. like a great Greek tragedy. But it also happens to take place in these little boardrooms.
Maybe it’s not hard when you have someone like Hugh Jackman, but as a viewer we like Frank, but dislike what he’s doing. I think that dynamic is important here.
I think it’s so easy to dismiss any kind of caricature. And it’s easy to just dismiss someone that’s just a villain and shitty and does terrible things for totally self-serving reasons. And yeah, I think in lesser hands, he could’ve seemed like sort of just this slick manipulator from frame one. And what I love about Hugh’s performance is how deeply you sense that this guy really is invested in this community and how much he is an educator at heart. It struck me as so interesting that if you have The Wolf of Wall Street, or something, and I love that movie, but the DiCaprio character is this kind of embodiment of greed and obviously went into the Wall Street business and banking because it was a place to make a quick buck above all else. And what was so strange is that Frank took so much money, but got into education. He clearly wasn’t a young, greedy man from the beginning who just wanted to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and make a ton of money.
Well, that’s an interesting comparison you made, because if someone tells me they watch The Wolf of Wall Street and they’re like, “Yeah, I think that Jordan Belfort guy is a good guy. I really like him,” I’d question their character. But I won’t if someone says Frank is sympathetic. And he has this secret private life that also makes him sympathetic.
I think it’s an important part of his story. And we didn’t want to make anything simple or causal about his private life and his embezzlement, because I don’t think it is, but I think it was important in just understanding the multidimensional man that this guy was and appreciating his character.
Now, take me through your mindset on this, because I’ve been trying to put myself in your situation. This got good reviews out of Toronto. Then HBO buys it, which is great. But as a filmmaker, I’m guessing there’s a part of you disappointed it won’t be in theaters. Now, fast forward to now, you are the only game in town this Saturday night.
Well, yeah, we definitely feel lucky now. It feels sort of gross to celebrate too much, obviously, particularly with my girlfriend heading off and telling me these war stories every day. It feels lurid to be like, “Thank God for the quarantine.” Because there’s nothing positive about it.
Absolutely. But I will add, this movie helps people do their part in staying home and not going out.
Yeah, I hope so. And I think I am a total social media Luddite. I don’t have an Instagram, but I have heard from people that do follow Hugh, for example, that he’s been doing a great job of kind of using this as a further reminder that everyone should be enjoying films at home. But yeah, I mean, the larger thing is I definitely love the theatrical experience. I come from live theater. I was a playwright before movies, and so I will always have a soft spot for theatrical distribution. But I do think this is a movie that hopefully will play particularly well for people at home. Obviously, movies are only playing for people at home right now, and I think just even generally, we’re shifting that way so quickly, and all of the traditional boundaries are falling away. And it’s going to be interesting to watch how this sort of gets into the conversations in the next couple weeks, because I think there’s a lot of exciting stuff that kind of small-screen entertainment can do. And yeah, obviously, HBO has been a leader in that world for a long time and has such a great trusted brand. So, it’s a complicated situation. But definitely right now, I’m glad we’re coming out at home.
‘Bad Education’ premieres this weekend on HBO. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.
Some of the best TV is coming from across the pond… and landing on Hulu.
The streaming platform is home to a handful of truly great shows, from spy dramas to classic comedies, all littered with A-list talent — think James McAvoy, Elizabeth Moss, and Idris Elba. You really shouldn’t be missing out on any of the UK imports on the site, but here are a few that are worth a watch first.
Killing Eve
2 seasons, 16 episodes | IMDb: 8.3/10
Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer go head-to-head in a gripping, globe-trotting game of cat-and-mouse in this spy-thriller from BBC. Oh (who earned a history-making Emmy for this role) plays Eve Polastri, a British Intelligence operative obsessed with catching an elusive assassin named Villanelle (Comer). Villanelle is a psychopath, one with a dark past and a love for the work she does — she’s damn good at it, too — and the two capable women soon find their lives entwined in ways neither of them expected. The first season might be one of the most thrilling on TV but season two lags behind a bit, with Eve and Villanelle working together to take down The Twelve and figure out their whole twisted-romance situation. Still, you can’t help but watch Comer, who’s having a hell of a time playing the bad guy.
The Office U.K.
2 seasons, 14 episodes | IMDb: 8.5/10
What can we say about this genre-defining workplace comedy that hasn’t been said before? Ricky Gervais’ mockumentary has influenced some of the greatest works on television, and despite its many predecessors, it remains the best example of what a good, mundane comedy series can do. Gervais as clueless boss David Brent, whose desperate attempts at connecting with his underlings are a painful exercise in futility. Martin Freeman is also a stand-out, playing a role that John Krasinski inhabited in the American remake, but it’s the British sarcasm that really elevates this series and makes it worthy of a watch.
Luther
4 seasons, 16 episodes | IMDb: 8.5/10
Maybe the bleakest, grittiest cop show you’ll ever see, Luther is so intense that it may, at times, rattle your brain stem. It’s got the best elements as it follows a genius detective who struggles to separate his personal and professional lives. But it is also pummeling great drama, and Idris Elba is a tour de force (Ruth Wilson is fantastic, too).
Pride & Prejudice
1 season, 6 episodes | IMDb: 8.9/10
Colin Firth brooding in a bathtub. Colin Firth bathing in a lake. Is this Jane Austen adaptation just an excuse to promote proper hygiene in the Victorian Era? Maybe, but it’s also a fantastic interpretation of one of the author’s most enduring works with Firth playing the gruff Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as the smart, independent Elizabeth Bennet.
Misfits
5 seasons, 37 episodes | IMDb: 8.3/10
There is a rough-around-the-edges quality that makes Misfits irresistible. A rotating team of adolescents gains supernatural powers while they’re fulfilling their criminal community service requirements, but the X-Men they are not. It’s not easy to categorize them as “the good guys,” considering all of the people they accidentally kill, but they certainly mean well. Fans of Game of Thrones and Preacher will see some familiar faces, but the whole cast is aces. There are rumblings of an American remake, but hopefully, that will never come to fruition. There is something so decidedly British about Misfits, but not in the stuffy way that people assume. It’s gritty, it’s crass, and to water that down for stateside sensibilities would be a crime.
Spaced
2 seasons, 14 episodes | IMDb: 8.6/10
We wouldn’t have British comedy gems like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead if it weren’t for this series that’s full of realistically bleak humor. It brought together the creative team of Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, and Nick Frost, capturing a slice of Gen X life with characters working in dead-end jobs, stuck in stagnant relationships, and generally unfulfilled in life. Sound funny? It is.
Top Of The Lake
2 seasons, 13 episodes | IMDb: 7.5/10
Elisabeth Moss stars in this haunting crime drama, playing a detective obsessed with the disappearance of a 12-year-old pregnant girl near a freezing lake in New Zealand. Season 2 is set in Sydney five years later, with Moss’ detective investigating another brutal assault, and this time, it’s the death of an unidentified Asian girl found at Bondi Beach. Both seasons feature powerful turns from Moss, though season one’s overall mystery feels richer and more unexpected.
Peep Show
9 seasons, 54 episodes | IMDb: 8.6/10
Peep Show, besides being laugh-out-loud funny, is the kind of innovative comedy that the British are known for. Using to-camera pans and inner monologues narrating real-time events, the show quite literally lets the audience peep in on its character’s lives. And they’re as cringeworthy as you’d expect. David Mitchell plays Mark, a socially awkward loan manager bunking with his flatmate, Jez (Robert Webb), a juvenile slacker with musical pipe dreams. The two don’t have much going for them, but that’s kind of the point. We’re meant to laugh at their failures, their lackluster love lives, their failed book club meetings, and maybe, take comfort in being able to say, “Hey, at least we’re not these guys.”
Shameless
11 seasons, 139 episodes | IMDb: 8/10
Showtime gave us a good interpretation of this British import, but the original is too good not to watch first. Both shows follow the same premise — a family struggling to lift themselves out of poverty despite their deadbeat dad’s various get-rich schemes — but the UK version pushes the limits a bit more, with edgier content and sharp comedy that’s sometimes missing from its American cousin.
Black Books
3 seasons, 18 episodes | IMDb: 8.5/10
Before Irish comedian Dylan Moran worked with Simon Pegg on Shaun of the Dead, he gave British audiences this little comedic gift, a multi-camera sitcom set in a disorganized London book shop. Moran plays the owner, Bernard Black, a crusty, middle-aged grouch who loves smoking, drinking, and reading almost as much as he hates people. He hires an earnest, happy-go-lucky fellow named Manny (Bill Bailey) to do his booking, and most of the jokes come thanks to their adversarial relationship.
Ever present as it may have been throughout, chaos wasn’t a substitute for a plan when Adam Pally and Ben Schwartz hosted CBS’ Late Late Show for a single, glorious, and oft-celebrated episode in 2015 — it was part of a larger plan. Nurtured by the rarest kind of executive (an artist’s champion with an eye for talent and knowing when to get out of the way and let people create), Pally and Schwartz trusted their instincts and the idea that if they were laughing, we’d be laughing.
Hampered by a blizzard, they pulled comedy wild man Eric Andre, into the mix, talked for a long time about hot soup and a Nic Cage movie, demonstrated their athletic prowess, got awkward, kvetched (a lot), while also showing videos of weird interactions with passersby and a drunken tattoo adventure. And then it was over. Like 99.99% of late-night episodes, it was assumed that all of this would be forgotten shortly after it aired. That hasn’t happened.
Here, in great detail, Pally, Schwartz, Andre, comic Gil Ozeri, CBS late-night VP Nick Bernstein, producer Sam Goldberg, cameraman Mark Bracamonte, and Pally’s cousin and colleague Ben Stricof discuss the vision, the unique ride, the relief that nobody got fired, and the show’s enduring legacy as a cool thing you may have heard about from a friend.
The Liquid Courage Years
Like all great stories, the Pally/Schwartz team-up begins with a meet-cute and a long history of playing together with only the sound of each other’s laughter as encouragement. But while the ‘Late Late Show ‘hummed with the power of their dual-energy, they were actually missing a key piece of the puzzle.
Adam Pally: Ben and I started working together early on at UCB. We were doing a show called Liquid Courage that was kind of like open mic for sketches. Ben was a bartender and I was one of the interns. I was a little bit behind Ben in the classes.
Ben Schwartz: We would just ask the manager if we could get up on stage. Nobody there. We just cleaned, because it was so hard to get stage time at UCB.
Pally: We just made each other laugh so much. We have a similar upbringing, Jewish kids from Riverdale and New Jersey. We clicked. Then we met our buddy Gil [Ozeri], who similarly is from Queens and is a Jewish kid. Although he has legit psychological problems.
Schwartz: Why would you say that?
Pally: Because I want to see it printed. But no, I mean, he’s just the funniest person I’ve ever met in my life. I think he would probably say the same thing.
Gil Ozeri: I respect them as people, but that’s about it.
Pally: Literally every minute of our lives was at that theater. We had so much fun playing together doing these sketches, the two of us. Then Gil would start showing up and we would put him as like the tag of sketches.
Ozeri: I went to a bunch of their shows. I think it started out as a [shared] affinity for sketches. Why we really work well together is we make each other laugh and we have fun on stage. We sort of forgot about the audience when we were improvising.
Schwartz: I remember those moments from those first shows that we did with perfect clarity, as opposed to the billion other ones we’ve done.
Pally: When I see backstage videos of Ben and Middleditch, it looks like he’s performing at The Ritz Carlton. The places where Ben and I used to perform — to no people and the grossness. It was real. We really performed for no people.
Schwartz: Pally and I would write these sketches, and one of them was about Ask Jeeves and Gil eating a huge cookie. I have it filmed.
Pally: I’m so scared of me dying and Ben going through old videos.
Schwartz: We’d do sketches like that and Gil would be there. Of the three of us, he’s the funniest by far.
Pally: He once did a bit with me in a car. He was driving his mom’s old Mercedes. And as a bit, he was like, “I’m going to pull it into the divider.” Because you know the dividers are like those little plastic things. They look like plastic. And he did it. But they are not plastic. They’re steel. And the laughter that he had about that, I was like, “Oh, this motherfucker is insane.”
Ozeri: It wasn’t very smart or wise at the time, but I wanted to make everybody in the car laugh. My car took a beating. Everyone was pleading with me to get off. I was at a time in my life when I would very freely put my friend’s lives on the line to make people laugh.
Something Different
Nick Bernstein, the Vice President of Late Night for CBS, was brought in to help oversee James Corden’s version of the ‘Late Late Show’ and didn’t have a lot to do with the parade of guest hosts that bridged the gap between that and Craig Ferguson’s version. For a run of shows in New York (which were weirdly filmed on the set of Charlie Rose’s ‘CBS This Morning’), however, Bernstein was asked to step in with the understanding that, besides Regis Philbin, who he had inherited, he could turn to his “friends who do this” to host the other episodes.
Nick Bernstein: I’ve known Adam since 2005 or 2006. He was in a group called The Hammerkatz. They were a sketch comedy group from NYU. I’d seen them when they were in LA at LA Sketch Fest. I became friends with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand [from the group]. They pitched me a pilot when I was working at NBC. It was just a spec thing that they’d done called Internet Millionaires. It was Dan and Doug and Adam. I really liked it and tried to get it moving at NBC when I was there. It didn’t happen for a variety of reasons, but we’d always remained friends. The more shows Adam started getting booked on or cast in — Happy Endings, The Mindy Project — the more he was on all these other talk shows, and I always enjoyed him as a guest.
Pally: Nick called me and was like, “If you want to do this, there are a few conditions. “I was like, ‘Yes.’” Those conditions were like, “Your guests? We won’t know until we go.” Then it became “tomorrow.” Then it became… “We won’t know until this morning.” Then it was like, “You’re going to have to be in New York on this extremely cold week, and we’re going to have to fly you coach. You’re going to have to pay for your crew” and all of that. And I was like, “You know it’s still yes. Hell, yeah.”
Bernstein: When I talked to Adam about the show, we talked about it very much as we can’t pretend that it’s something that it’s not. You have to lean into the oddities of this program.
Ozeri: I remember Adam called me early on and said that he wanted me to play a sort of bumbling producer who was trying to get the show back on track. Someone was going to be the co-host and I was going to be this sort of bumbling idiot producer.
Schwartz: I remember asking if Pally wanted to tell me what was going on and he’s like, “No.” I go, “Yeah. I think I should know.” So I knew nothing.
Pally: That was me acting cool without having anything going on. Schwartz was a hired gun. He was my ace in the hole. When I knew I had him, which was the week before, I was like, “Oh, this is going to be great.” Honestly, I think his name helped me keep the job.
Schwartz: Meanwhile, he didn’t tell me that until literally like two days before.
Ben Stricof: Adam and I work together (on The President Show), and we’re also cousins. We were both living in and working out of LA when he got the offer. We decided we were going to both go to New York for a week leading up to the show and produce all of the content in that week leading up to the show. I think Adam just wanted to do something that was a little different.
Blitzed In A Blizzard
In New York for the week to film and shadow the other hosts, Pally suddenly found himself having to deal with a blizzard and an ensuing area-wide lockdown that caused guests to cancel and plans to be reworked. Or, in the case of Pally and Schwartz’ ‘Late Late Show,’ completely abandoned.
Ozeri: So, I wasn’t able to make it because of the blizzard.
Pally: Gil was, I’m sure, going to end up on air, but he was also going to be my rock. My guy on the floor with a headset and he was going to help me write and edit the bits. But [him not being there] came with a simplicity to it too. I wouldn’t have gone out on the street and been like, “Do you know who I am?” if Gil’s flight hadn’t been held up.
Ozeri: I was really bummed out about it. They had so much fun and it looked like such a trainwreck. I wish I had been a part of causing it to go off the tracks.
Pally: It was one of those New York blizzards that would open up, and they’d be like, “Actually, you know what? We are going to have a guest. You’re going to have Jane Kaczmarek.” And you’re like, “Oh, okay. I better start watching Malcolm in the Middle.” Then you get a call like two hours later, and they’re like, “Actually, there’s a horrible blizzard, so Jane’s out.” It was very much like we didn’t get anything planned, but the man on the street bit came up because there was a small bit of press that I had to do with the other hosts from that week, which were Whitney Cummings and Regis Philbin — whose guest was Donald Trump. The first question that was asked of me [while doing press] was, “How did you get this job?” I was like, “Oh, no one knows who I am. This is nuts.” People were like, “Now, is this a contest? Did you win a contest?” So we were like, maybe we should just do the man on the street bit.
Stricof: We had two other people helping us, (The President Show producers) Mark Bracamonte and Sam Goldberg.
Mark Bracamonte: We had no crew, so it was me running the camera and the audio. We looked like we were college filmmakers. It was like we couldn’t get a crew. Everybody had canceled. We had no light. We weren’t terribly sure if the microphone was even working and it was like this hand-me-down.
Sam Goldberg: Pally played along with that (people not knowing who he was). Obviously, he’s got a good following and he totally gets noticed at a lot of places. But, he’s not like fucking Tom Hanks. He can go out in public and not be bothered, more often than not.
Bracamonte: He’s like, “Let’s just walk around and talk to people. Let’s go to the Upper East Side. You know, cause I’ll run into some Jewish people and they won’t get as offended when I make fun of them.” So yeah, that was hilarious. We ended up with a family that recognized him. We walked with them to go get ice cream.
Goldberg: You never know who you’re going to see in the city. Like the Jewish family that he’s trying to set his cousin up with and the girl who only has one glove and is blaming Adam. It’s just so funny. There are so many funny characters and Adam obviously is great at playing off all these people.
Stricof: We ended up doing the man on the street bit, I think, before the snowstorm hit. And then when the snowstorm hit, we were just scrambling. Like, “what can we do?” And then the idea to get a tattoo popped up. I have no idea why or why anyone thought that would be good for the opening.
Pally: We were going to do a drinking bit. Like, it was about how New York sometimes likes to drink during a blizzard. I remembered, when I was a youth, that the Murray Hill area of New York was like people fresh out of college. So when there was a blizzard, everyone would just rage.
Schwartz: Pally was really trying to hit the 24-year-old Jewish female demographic.
Pally: I knew who was going to respond to daddy, ya know? So we were like, “Okay. Let’s go.” Then by the time the equipment got to the hotel, the snow was so bad. It was one of those things where taxis weren’t running. It’s like, “You’re not going anywhere.” We’re like, “Well, maybe we’ll just film Adam getting fucked up.” Then they kept feeding me these drinks at this hotel bar, and then the hotel bar found out what was going on. By the time it was over, it was like, “Let’s go get tattoos!”
Stricof: I just remember calling the place. They were fans of The Mindy Project so they let us come in even though I think it was after-hours. We were also drinking and going a little stir crazy in the storm.
Pally: Oh my god. I was so fucked up. I had to sign a waiver with the tattoo place because I was so fucked up.
Stricof: We went there and Adam picked out a tattoo, which was a tree. Again, I don’t even know where he got the design from because it was a pretty poorly drawn out tree. I don’t know what it says about me, but Adam got it before me and I’m like, “Oh I want the same exact thing.” Clearly, we weren’t in the right state of mind to be doing anything like that.
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Pally: Everyone realized how horrible the tattoo was and backed out.
Goldberg: I wouldn’t say I chickened out. I saw the way it came out and it just looked like stalks of broccoli. I’m like, “I’m not getting that fucking tattoo. It sucks.”
Bernstein: I’m pretty sure they tried to bill me for the actual tattoo.
Stricof: It was pure chaos, it really was. We had no idea what we were even making, but I mean it all worked out. I don’t know if anybody else brought this up. I remember going to Grandma Sylvia. It’s Adam’s grandma. I remember shooting a bit there that clearly never made the cut.
Pally: I forget what it was, but I remember being really mean to everyone there and it not coming out very good — I think I made my cousin cry and then I cried. It was the pinnacle of when we thought, “oh wait, maybe this week will go badly.”
Stricof: I didn’t know Adam cried too, that makes me feel a little better about it. I don’t remember exactly what was said or what caused it, but I know we were stressed and hungover. And being around Grandma Sylvia in that state of mind probably made both of us feel really vulnerable. So yeah, we both had a bit of a meltdown.
Fear And Loathing On The CBS This Morning Set
Surrounded by an exhausted crew on the set of ‘CBS This Morning,’ where this episode was oddly filmed, Pally and Schwartz leaned on the power of their banter, poking at the weird atmosphere while navigating endearingly unpolished interviews. All before pulling off the world’s most astonishing pen toss.
Pally: I would go in, in the beginning [of the week] and try to borrow equipment and stuff. I was just such a nuisance to everybody. No one wanted to give me advice, honestly. Whitney was the nicest. But still, it’s like you don’t want to give advice to other people doing this co-hosting thing. It’s more like it’s your own show.
Schwartz: I remember the monologue being longer and literally I would hear jokes, and they’re like, “That will never air.” I think Pally did them just because he knew they would never use them. But there was a lot of like, “What are you doing?”
Pally: I had lunch with Nick Kroll the week before and I told him I was doing it. He was like, “You want to be self-effacing up top because people may not know you, so they’re just looking at you. I did a few bits about the way I look, and who I am. It just kind of went from there. Those [monologue] jokes were not great because I’m not a great joke writer. The way that we started to move in and out of it was like, who knows what’s going [on]? It’s like Wayne’s World.
Bernstein: I think the last two people that we ended up booking — that we were really excited about — were (ex-NFL player) Martellus Bennett and Beth Stern (Howard’s wife). Martellus was only going to be able to hear us. So, you can’t tell the difference between a serious interview at the start or a fun one. And so, Adam asked him about his quarterback, Jay Cutler, and he had a fairly serious answer. Ben was not gonna let anything go unnoticed and he almost immediately made fun of Adam. And so Martellus picked up on it quick and all of a sudden, he’s like, “Oh, I see where we’re at now.” And they go on these riffs and it was basically pure joy.
Pally: I think I do regret asking him if Jay Cutler was a super putz. Like, that was unnecessary. I tend to get aggressive when I’m nervous.
Bernstein: Beth Stern was the first person Adam interviewed in person [for the show]. The first thing she says is, “You can ask me anything you want.” Her presence was calming and sort of allowed Adam to continue doing the thing the way he wanted. He was never constricted and none of the guests challenged him in terms of asking, “What are you doing?”
Schwartz: They were so open and in the moment, it was great. It was an added bonus to find out how funny Martellus is.
Pally: I knew I had Eric Andre, who’s a buddy of mine, and I knew that that segment would at least feel like Eric.
Bernstein: We were looking for chaos and Eric Andre was the right guest to make that happen. He kind of pulled an Adam on Adam, because Adam is typically the guest who wants to do strange things.
Eric Andre: I love how brave Pally is because when I’m in a situation like that, I’m like, “Shit, I gotta behave, I’m going to get in trouble.” It’s a weird irony. I sort of get in trouble for a living and prank people and push the boundaries of pranks and stuff like that. But for some reason when I’m on late-night talk shows or anything like that, I kind of seem like a kid that’s a troubled teen in a school and I’m going to get in trouble. I have a weird guilty conscience like I’m going to get detention or something. So I was like, “Oh, well, I want to be crazy.”
Bernstein: It was off the rails in a very late night way.
Pally: I do think there was a moment though where Ben did look at me like, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Because it was like jumping off a cliff. “Yeah, no. It’s going to be on TV, no matter what.”
Bernstein: I think that there were moments during the taping, mostly during the Eric Andre interview where I had to step in for a minute and politely ask Eric to button up his shirt. He was undressing during the show, and we weren’t sure how far that was going to go.
Andre: I really love Benicio Del Toro’s character in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. That’s one of my favorite performances in a movie. And I think that that shirt just reminded me of that character and the persona he took on. So I think I just started unbuttoning it, but no, I’m trying to keep the nudity to a minimum. It’s a little bit of one-trick pony if I do it all the time. So no, that was just on the fly. There wasn’t any thought behind it. Also, they got Charlie Rose whipping his cock out over there for free. So I don’t want to steal his thunder. Jesus Christ.
Ozeri: When we would go in to pitch TV shows, we’d force each other to say funny things in the meeting to see if the executives would laugh in response to it. We would all laugh at the sentence as if it was funny and everyone got it. And studio executives laughed along. One of the things I told Pally and Ben to say repeatedly in meetings was to compare the TV show we were pitching to “Frasier for babies.” The only way I could contribute to the show from Los Angeles because of the blizzard was I told Pally, at some point, to say “it’s like Frasier for babies.” And he does say it during the Andre interview.
Bernstein: As it was unfolding, I was in New York. I was in the studio as it was happening. You can hear me laughing throughout, one of those three voices that you can hear that are enjoying what Ben and Adam were doing. So we felt like it was a pretty exciting moment. They also taped it on a Friday, so it would be five days in a row that this group had been doing these longer than normal days.
Andre: I could tell that the crew hated us and hated Adam. And then he just started calling it out. He was like, “I just saw a cameraman die. Everyone hates me.” And I just was like, “Yeah! Lean into it. Lean into that fear.” And I was just inspired by that. I like that Adam is just like, “fuck it.” So it was cool.
Pally: I felt like they hated me all week. I would go in, in the beginning, and try to borrow equipment and stuff. I was just such a nuisance to everybody. My jokes were supposed to be like bomb-y. I feel like Ben felt it right away.
Schwartz: In my head, when I got there, they were just going through the motions and stuff. They weren’t upset. But Pally kept saying that they were upset, so I played the game. I have no idea how much is in Pally’s head.
Pally: It might be in my head.
Andre: We might just be being sensitive comedians and it just felt like we were bombing. It’s not like they typically laugh. They don’t want to laugh for sound. So they might’ve just been exhausted. I am totally guilty of being hyper-sensitive.
Bernstein: It was a little bit real and a little bit hyped. I think that people were certainly enjoying themselves. They were enjoying themselves in the booth. I think Adam and Ben leaned into the chaotic nature a little bit, but in a way that made sense for I think where they were and the time of day.
Pally: I would do a joke that was supposed to bomb, and then I would laugh at it. And I’d hear the camera guy going, “You son of a bitch.” Which is like very genuine. That’s like him being like, “This motherfucker is going to make me stay here past lunch.” That was the vibe all morning, which is very hard for comedy.
Schwartz: I will say, in terms of Pally’s anxiety [level], I found him to be very cool and collected. Like, before shows sometimes, he’d be like, “Oh, boy. Here we go.” Or something like that. But when this was happening, I don’t know if it was just because he and I had fucked around or if he was just like, “Who cares?” But we were in a place where it was like we were goofing around as if nobody was watching and we didn’t care.
Pally: I honestly think it came from the two of us having done like 1,000 improv shows together for no one. Most of my anxiety, usually when I did that before shows, was just played up for Ben anyway. We would all be like, “Oh, boy.” But then we all knew we were funnier than everybody. And I know that. But then still, I also have this kind of out of control feeling. Right? Like I had never done this before, and I’m still kind of early on in my career. I didn’t know the full extent of my chaotic powers. Now I fear them.
Bernstein: One of the goals of ours was to allow a lot of space for them to fly during that hour. Everybody has their most memorable or favorite parts of that show. Talking about Bangkok Dangerous and “the soup is hot,” and how long that lasted, and how much they played into the peaks and valleys. I felt like this is unique. Let’s throw it out there and see what happens. If it doesn’t hit, who cares? It’s one in the morning. If it does hit, all the better.
Pally: Bangkok Dangerous is one of me and my two great genius friends Curtis Gwinn and John Gemberling’s favorite bad Nicolas Cage movies. We used to go see most of them when movie theaters were a thing and “The soup is hot!” scene… I remember really thinking it was funny. When Ben said I kept picking up the cup and not drinking it, that’s what I thought of.
Ozeri: We made fun of that movie a lot.
Goldberg: I don’t understand how the pen toss is not on a top 10 all-time sports highlight. Because that was so sick.
Pally: We did the pen toss twice.
Schwartz: We did it again because they didn’t have a reverse angle on Pally for coverage. Because nobody thought it was going to happen. Pally has incredible hand-eye coordination. We’ve both been Jewish basketball players forever. He didn’t even look at the fucking pen. My reaction was so genuine because I tried to lob it so it would come in the area where he needed it. It was such a fucking flex. He didn’t even look at the goddamn pen. It was one of the most exciting moments in my goddamn life. They were like, “Okay, can you do that last part again?” And I was like, “No, of course not. What are you, insane?”
Pally: I think that was the most exciting moment in my life.
Schwartz: It was insane that he was able to catch that perfectly two times in a row. I’ve seen the episode two or three times. I’ve re-watched that clip 15 times. I love it.
Bernstein: I think we were all excited about how it turned out and several of us went back to Adam’s hotel room to watch it as it was airing live on the East Coast. We knew if anybody stumbled upon this, they’re going to be really weirded out, I think, in a good way, by what was happening. We were just following Twitter as we were watching what some of the reactions were. It was all kind of what we expected. So a version of, “what the hell is this thing?” and “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Schwartz: I watched it that night and I remember they cut a bunch of shit, and it worked. I was like, “Oh, that’s great.” I literally was like, “Okay, that wasn’t as big of a train wreck as I thought.” Because during it, I was like, “Oh, my god. This could be fucking weird.” I remember shutting it off and thinking, “Okay, we’re not in trouble. That’s it. That will be the end of that forever.”
Pally: I remember thinking the same thing, less excited and more, “Thank god my career won’t be over. Everybody is fine.”
Something Cool
More than five years after a very weird and snowy week resulted in a singular episode of late-night television, Pally, Schwartz, and company have thoughts on why it all worked, its cult following, and whether they could pull it off again.
Schwartz: To be fair, it is truly Nick Bernstein and Pally who planned this whole fucking thing. I just happened to get lucky enough for them to be like, “Hey, come improvise with us.” Because all of the bits and all that shit. I had no idea. That’s all Pally. I just came in and just got to play with them.
Pally: Nick is an amazing producer. And he worked with Rick Ludwin, who’s a legend. There’s a reason that he’s been doing this for all these great entertainers. I feel very lucky that this show is under Nick’s umbrella. Because his track record and his producing is unmatched.
Schwartz: He knew about all three of us before anybody cared about any of us. When we were trying to sell a sketch show. He’s really cool at finding talent and then pushing them. Because this show was mayhem. He’s the genius that put it all together and was like, “Yeah, let them play. Let these guys play. Something cool will happen.”
Bernstein: Rick Ludwin used to talk about the danger factor in late-night as being so important. What he meant by that was there were people who would come on the air at 11:30 or 12:30 either in talk shows or in sketch, and you never knew exactly what they were doing but you couldn’t turn away. Adam and Ben had a little bit of that [with the show].
Andre: I think people react to honesty and authenticity. I mean, look at Howard Stern’s career. It’s incredible. And he’d never compromise. He’s always pushed the envelope, and he’s always been himself. People relish you. That’s what people want. They want honesty. They don’t want… I don’t know. I don’t know what people want. But I don’t know why there’s not more of that. I don’t have an answer to that. There should be.
Bracamonte: You know, in all of the unpreparedness, what I think shined through the most was the honesty and heart of just letting it happen. And I think people appreciated that.
Schwartz: Pally wasn’t afraid of failing at all. He didn’t care. I think that’s also a big thing. I mean, maybe secretly he does. I mean, surely he does. I know him well enough [to know] that there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to fail, but whatever. He attacks things as if he’s like, “You know what? I’m going for it. I’m going to dress up as a fucking Fat Batman on Conan.” Yeah, there’s a chance that it won’t hit, but I think Pally would rather take that risk and fail than just go out there and be another guest talking about Happy Endings, or whatever.
Goldberg: Adam has this really great ability, for as long as I’ve known him, to just kind of not really give a fuck and say what he wants to say. And yeah, it usually pays off.
Schwartz: Pally and I have a very interesting mix where he’ll do things that might offend people or something like that. He’ll push that, and I’m always the safe guy that’s like, “Don’t do it.” I think the combination of both of us works.
Pally: It’s also visual. Dan Akroyd talks about this a lot, which is, in comedy partnerships you want the number 10. It goes together well. You want to see a tall together person with a dangerous round circle.
Schwartz: I never even thought about that. Laurel and Hardy, Spade and Farley…
Pally: We fit the mold really well.
Schwartz: If the fans of this didn’t keep re-uploading it, it would just be erased forever. Which is such a funny thing. But also, I think it was like, Eric Appel, who is a great improviser and director… he used to say back in the day you would record weird shit off of like 1:00 in the morning public access, or like weird shows that run. You put it on a VHS, and you pass it to your friend and your friend would go crazy for it. Your friend would pass it to another friend. I always thought this was kind of a version of that because if you happened to be up at 12:45 AM in this blizzard, like when nobody was watching for Pally hosting and me helping him out as his Andy Richter, you would be like, “What the fuck?” It felt like such a fun little like… “Did you guys see? What the fuck just happened?” Then people started to copy it and send it and pass it around the internet almost like what Appel said happened with those VHS tapes. Which I used to have. I used to trade like Simpsons episodes with friends, or like weird stuff from late-night talk shows.
Pally: I think early Conan is the number one most influential thing on this episode to me. I think subconsciously, it was like, “well, this is all I’ve ever watched, so this is what it will be.”
Schwartz: Pally knows how much me being on Letterman meant to me. That was like 10 years after I was a page there. He only had like three weeks left. I had done freelance jokes for him and I had gotten 21 jokes on. All I wanted to do was be a guest on the show before he ended. It was such a big deal and was such a funny thing to go from that to making this [the day after].
Pally: I really don’t know how CBS feels about all of it. They dodge every connection to it. Nick’s been talking about that Hanukkah special forever. I would love to do that.
Bernstein: There was a pitch I think that year to try and get a Hanukkah special going. It was more of an idea than an actual full-blown pitch. It was a little bit hard. I think we might’ve tried a little bit too late in the year, where budgets sort of evaporate. It would really have been like a special and what time period does this go in? Where does it play? It was a funny idea. I mean listen, it’d be a lot of fun to work with those three guys again to do something.
Schwartz: I feel like we’re at different parts of our career right now. Nothing would ever be exactly that because that moment’s us — younger, going after it, not caring… You know what I mean? I’m sure it would be a different version of that. But it would still be fun and I don’t think, comedically, we’ve changed.
Pally: Of course, it could [be recreated]. I think the thing that made it so exciting was the stakes. It was like Ben was saying, attacking it with no fear. Doing a late-night talk show with no script. No planning on that level. What gave you energy and still does when you watch it? Because you’re like, “What are these two idiots doing? Did they sneak onto a set or something?” I think if you were going to recreate it, you probably just want to do it with higher stakes.