Name: Monday Morning Podcast 12-12-18
Uploaded: 2018-12-13T17:46:35.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Monday Morning Podcast 12-12-18' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-12-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Monday Morning Podcast 12-12-18' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-12-13. Transcript available.

Monday Morning Podcast 12-12-18

All right, hey, what's going on? It's Bill Burr, and it's time for a special
episode of the Monday Morning Podcast.
It's not on Monday. It's not on Thursday. It's coming out, I guess, what,
Tuesday, Wednesday?
We're going to put this out as soon as we can. I have a special guest here.
You know I don't do a lot of guests, so if I bring somebody in, they've got to
be a heavy hitter.
That's right.
They've got to be a mover, a shaker, a shot caller.
We have the one and only Judd Apatow here.
Pleasure to be here.
Judd, how are you, buddy?
I like to be here. Usually you're all by yourself, just talking to the wall.
Yes, I am. And usually you're in the midst of producing, which fascinates me.
I tried to talk to you about this because I like to think I'm kind of a busy
man, too.
How you manage to have movies, TV shows, stand-up special, master class,
documentary on Gary Shandling.
How the fuck do you keep all, like, how big is the bulletin, the war room?
It's all management technique. That's what you want to know.
I'll tell you a good management technique.
The staff of Crashing is in a room right now writing the fourth season.
The third season comes on in January, but they're writing the fourth season,
and I'm here with you.
Yes.
That's management.
So how do you check in with that?
How do I check in with that?
Every day, do they send you a draft, and you just kind of keep it in bounds of
where it needs to be?
Or at season four, is it sort of up and running?
Well, usually what it is is Pete and I, and also Judah Miller and Oren who work
on the show,
will kick around a little bit what we think the season might be.
We bring in writers for a month, and we just kick it around very openly, like
anything is on the table.
And I'll pop in and out of those meetings, and then there's notes, and I'll
read the notes,
and then sit in for half a day, and then take a day off, and then pop back in.
And usually that gives me some perspective, because you've been in those rooms.
There's a lot of Chinese food.
There's a lot of Danishes.
You get tired.
Lunch is huge.
There's a lot of people talking about things that have nothing to do with the
show for very long periods of time.
And then at some point, I'll sit with Pete, and we'll go through everything and
go,
okay, which ideas do we like?
You know what my favorite thing is?
Is the mental break you take in the writer's room.
It's like you're pitching, you're pitching, you're pitching, then you're fried.
And I always look around the room, and I'll just see someone who hasn't pitched
in a minute,
and they're just sort of staring down at the ground for about 15, 20 minutes,
and then they just come back up.
They're like, all right, what if Frank did the fucking game?
But you literally, you have to do it.
And what I learned on F is for Family, though, was I didn't realize how fried
you get in the writer's room.
And my drinking went off the rails a little bit.
It was one little scotch, and then it just became like three.
So last season.
At what time of day, though, are you having your scotch in the room?
Oh, not in the room.
No, it was when I got home.
When I got home, I would literally just, you know, put on the fireplace, turn
it on now,
because you don't light a fire anymore.
You just turn it on.
And then I would just sit there like, yeah, and I was getting to that shit.
It was just like I need this at the end of the day.
So in season three, like I did this thing.
I go, not only am I not drinking this season, I'm actually going to try to do
the impossible,
which is drop weight in the writer's room, which I did.
I packed a lunch like I was a second grader.
So every day that they would be going out.
No, I had like this quinoa bean thing that I would always have.
And then just fruit and nuts would be my snacks or whatever.
Because it's all reward.
You want to reward yourself.
You know, you get to work, whatever, 9, 10 o'clock, and all you think all
morning is,
I think at 1230 the food's going to land.
Oh, yeah.
The food's going to land, then we could stop talking about this show and eat
this food.
And if everybody voted a place that you fucking hate, it's just like that is
the longest day ever.
But if you're going to like, you know, it's like a Friday and they picked an
awesome like lunch place,
that can literally, you pitch better.
But I like that you are not in charge of that because the only area I will
throw my weight around
is if they say, hey, we're going to eat here today, I'm very comfortable going,
we are not going there today.
Daddy needs this today.
No, there's definitely a generation gap, and that also goes with nutrition.
So there's people, like my show takes place in the 70s,
so there's people that grew up in the 70s and there's other people who were
born in the 80s.
So they're more likely to go to something a little more healthy than the old
sort of John Wayne people in the room.
They're like, hey, I'm not eating that shit.
And some days there's a little bit of a mutiny.
But it's not about the writers from here.
I actually, they sent me, which is really cool, thank you,
you guys sent me a link to the first episode of season three of Crashing with
the great Pete Holmes.
And just once again, it's like watching that show, it's like I've lived this.
I don't want to give away what the episode is about.
But generally speaking, it's like Pete has now gotten to the point where he
actually has his own place, which is awesome.
And he's mentoring a young man, Jaboukie, from The Daily Show, who's on The
Daily Show now.
Oh, okay, yeah.
Who's great.
And it's he finally feels cocky enough to give someone else advice.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You're talking like he's in the mix.
He's kind of feeling himself a little bit.
And as always, this business will humble you.
So he ends up getting humbled and it's like just the way the, how you, when he
gets humbled, I don't want to say it is,
the way it's written that he then lashes out at this person that he kind of
smooths stuff over with.
And that's just like the worst, especially with the woman.
Then you get that whole, you're enjoying this, aren't you?
You're enjoying that.
I mean, I literally had that fight with my wife like two days ago.
What was she enjoying?
That I lost my temper.
Yeah.
And then, you know, and then she gets to, you know, like, you know how the deal
is, you know, with women, nothing is off bounds.
But like with you, you have to stay within the lines or she'll never hear the
end of it.
So, you know, she, you know, you know, she was driving the car all over the
place, all over my life, letting me know who I was.
But, you know, she was right about a lot of it.
And that's the worst part is that they are right about a lot of it.
No, but they're also wrong.
So out of this, this whole period now where women, like they went from nobody
listening to them to now everything that they say is spun with gold.
It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's getting ridiculous.
It's like, we have to be, okay, let's, let's, you know, women are like guys.
A lot of them are just full of shit, you know, as are men.
So, I mean, that's the art of life is trying to figure out who actually has the
information that you need, which is why when I talk to you how to, you know,
manage a show, you have the goods with everything you got going on here.
Well, sometimes, you know, the thing about it is that you do need someone who
has the perspective to judge ideas and how things are going.
So there's a process of generating maybe a thousand ideas for a show.
But if you're burnt out from being part of that generation, it's hard for you
to pick what works.
And so like at girls, I, I was very involved in the writing, but I wouldn't go
to the set because it was so well directed.
There was no reason for me to be there.
The footage always was great.
And Lena and Jenny were great at monitoring the directors and directing
themselves.
At what point did you have confidence to be like, all right, this thing is
cruising?
Well, I don't think I ever felt like it was, it was, it was cruising, but I had
confidence in if the script was good, they would shoot it great.
Right.
And then I could put all my energy into just reading the scripts to give them a,
a person who could tell them if the scripts worked.
Right.
You know, so they were tired from shooting and writing and, and they're
exhausted.
And I, I'm able to have a little more energy to just read and go on page four.
It's weird.
Why'd they say that?
Right.
It's not tracking.
And it's, that's hard to do when you're in the thick of it and you're exhausted.
And so there is a value to, you know, picking where you're helpful and where
you're like, you don't need me here.
I don't have to sit and look at over the director's shoulder.
You're nailing it.
Let me save that energy for the writing part.
I hate to admit this, but I actually enjoy being in the writer's room.
Oh yeah.
I was like kicking and screaming and thinking about, Oh God, I'm a comedian.
I'm free.
Why the fuck am I going to go back into the math class or whatever?
And I should, I should say this on days where it's working.
Yes.
When it's working and it's cruising and we're getting good notes, you know, um,
we always get good notes, but I mean positive notes from Netflix.
Like we enjoyed this, but then on the days where like, this doesn't really,
there's too much of that.
And then we go, all right.
And then we try to fix it.
And then it's just not working.
Those are the days where I feel like I'm back in high school and I'm just, it's
like, is the clock broken?
Like what, what, what are we doing here?
So you're the teacher.
That's the thing.
You know, when you work on a show and you're not the teacher, like at the Larry
Sanders show, if we did a table read and it wasn't working, then suddenly there
is someone upset with you.
Right.
And you are a shamed child that the script didn't work well.
And you're, then you're like, how can I fix it?
And, and, and there's almost a daddy or mommy character that you're
disappointing if the show isn't working or if the script isn't working, there's
a lot, a lot of ways for it to be super unhealthy, but it is more fun.
You're right.
When you're that person and you can treat people well and you have your own
strong point of view, it's not as painful.
Yeah.
I would say in my room at Mike Price is, he's the captain of the ship.
So I'm the guy that sort of chimes in and tries to like, I don't know, uh, keep
it like certain things tethered to reality.
If it, if it starts getting a little too like absurd, but you know, you brought
up Gary Shandling who like, you know, anybody who's even remotely into comedy,
just, I mean, that guy's like on the Mount Rushmore there.
And, uh, I just remember, you know, I watched, you know, you know, this is the
theme, the Gary show.
I watched this first one.
I watched everything.
I used to watch his tonight show sets.
I just always just thought the guy, he just always, it was funny when, even
like when I was in June, junior high, I was like in seventh grade.
I knew that his stuff was just funnier that it was, this is like a different
level.
Like this guy is better than all of these other guys.
And I was wondering what, like, what was that like?
You know, cause I, I really, I sent an email about that.
Like I thought the Gary Shandling documentary that you do is the, that's my
favorite thing you've done.
And I have 40 year old virgin and all this stuff.
But, um, what was that like?
Cause you were friends with somebody like that.
Um, you know, myself, I've lost a couple of friends and I know that certain
things, it just gets like really emotional.
What was, but I never delved into their life to the level that, that you did
with, with Gary, who was like a friend and a mentor to you.
Like, what was that process like?
Like how long did it take you to, to, to, you know, cause that was on par with
like, did you see that Eagles documentary?
Oh, I love that.
It was like three hours long and it felt 