DISCONNECT THE DISCORD! Jason reluctantly subs in for Paul to answer all your Corrections & Omissions on Champagne & Bullets (aka GetEven aka Road to Revenge). Plus, Paul & Jason nerd out about improv with Suzi Barrett who hosts Yes, Also— the podcast that's a love letter to improv comedy. And don't worry, as always at the end of the episode we announce next week's new movie! Check out Yes, Also on Apple, Spotify, or subscribe to their Supercast for bonus content.
DISCONNECT THE DISCORD! Jason reluctantly subs in for Paul to answer all your Corrections & Omissions on Champagne & Bullets (aka GetEven aka Road to Revenge). Plus, Paul & Jason nerd out about improv with Suzi Barrett who hosts Yes, Also— the podcast that's a love letter to improv comedy. And don't worry, as always at the end of the episode we announce next week's new movie!
Check out Yes, Also on Apple, Spotify, or subscribe to their Supercast for bonus content.
[00:00:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Alright, what's up jerks? It's Jason. Paul is out of town. I got a panicked, a panicked phone call from Producer Scott and he said, you gotta get on the, on the, on the wifi. You gotta get on the computer right now. We, we need to record a Last Looks asap, so here we go. We're doing it. It's a Jason episode of Last Looks.
[00:00:22] We're disconnecting the discord. These fucking idiots convinced me to do one of these again. Hit the theme song.
[00:00:28] Music: [Last Looks Intro Song]
[00:00:38] Jason Mantzoukas: Welcome to How Did This Get Made Last Looks where you, the listener, get to voice your issues on, oh boy, the movie we covered at the end of tour called Champagne and Bullets. Yikes. A full on yikes movie. A movie that Discord user. Again, we're disconnecting the discord. Dov, DOV thinks should have had the tagline,
[00:00:59] and then this is all in, uh, quotes and italics, which leads me to believe that these are DOV's words.
[00:01:06] "Here's a quarter. Buy yourself a writer, director, actor, singer, producer."
[00:01:12] Unquote, that's DOV's uh, tagline for this movie. We do taglines, now. You guys write taglines for the movies now. That's part of what we do.
[00:01:19] Um, thank you DOV for the movie tagline and huge shout out to Casey Alexander for that opening theme song, which was a banger. Um, you know what? Every once in a while I get to come on here and do one of these, and I'm never not blown away by people's musical, uh, abilities and that they put those abilities in the service of this absolutely absurd podcast.
[00:01:41] Remember, if you have a movie tagline that you wanna submit to us, you can do it on our discord? That's how they do it. I feel like there's gotta be a better way to do it. Don't we have a landline that can leave a message on? Um, okay. You can go to our Discord at, hold on, now. I'm having to lean forward to look at the type. At Discord.gg/HDTGM. So it's Discord Gilmore Girls slash How Did This Get Made. And if you have a Last Looks episode theme song, uh, just like, uh, Casey Alexander did just moments ago, go to HDTGM.com and click submit a song button at the end of the homepage or not the end of the homepage, that's, there is no end of the homepage is there?
[00:02:27] Just keeps scrolling, is my guess. Uh, but there is a Submit a Song button on the homepage. Uh, just try and keep 'em short, guys, 15, 20 seconds for those songs, and that's what works best. Much like a any second opinion theme song or any other theme song, uh uh, they go on too long. They always go on too long, so chop 'em up,
[00:02:45] guys. We know you love your art, as do we ours, but chop it up. Okay, coming up on today's episode, we're gonna be hearing all of your corrections and omissions on Champagne and Bullets, and I will be playing an exclusive, exclusive exclusive deleted scene from the episode. Well, it's not a deleted scene from the episode.
[00:03:05] It's probably a, I mean, we didn't record any scenes, uh, but, but you're, I'm guessing what this means is there will be exclusive content stuff that was cut out of the ep and we're putting it back in. Why? Probably because it's fucking hilarious. Plus for all of you improv nerds and honestly, everybody else, Paul and I have a great guest.
[00:03:28] We have Suzi Barrett, the podcaster behind the Fantastic Improv podcast. Yes, Also. Paul and I have been a guest, uh, on the, on the show before. We both love it. Um, uh, we had a great talk with Suzi Barrett, who is just a terrific improviser, uh, a teacher, um, a great podcast host, great conversationalist. We had a great chat, and as always at the end of the show, I will reveal like a magician, the movie for next week's episode, but for now I'll just tease that it's a movie we've been getting a lot of requests to cover, so we did.
[00:04:04] Okay. Before we get to the action, a little bit of housekeeping. We have live, How Did This Get Made dates on the calendar. Los Angeles Largo, October 22nd and 23rd. There are still a few tickets left. Get on there. Get 'em up. Snatch 'em up. Get on a plane. Fly over here. Wait in line. Get a ticket, go get a coffee, come back, get back in line, walk into the venue.
[00:04:31] Sit in your seat and shit your pants from laughing. October 22nd and 23rd at Largo. Also at Largo Dinosaur Improv. The improv group that Paul and I are a part of. September 19th. September 19th at Largo Dinosaur Improv Tickets. If you wanna check it out, go on the website. Get tickets. Lastly, a lot of people know that our amazing movie picking producer Avaryl, is still fighting cancer and can always use some more love from you guys.
[00:05:00] You can email her a message at Andrew@moviebitches.xyz, or you can mail her something directly at Avaryl Halley. That's H-A-L-L-E-Y PO Box 6 4 1 Agora Hills, A-G-O-U-R-A, California 9 1 3 7 6. I know a lot of you have already reached out and it's been wonderful, so please keep it going. Okay, let's get into it.
[00:05:27] Last week we talked at length about Champagne and Bullets. Wow, this movie was nuts. Sure, we might've missed a few things. There was quite a bit to cover. As I remember in this movie. Now, not to pull the curtain back too much, but we are some months from when we recorded this. So I have almost completely wiped this, uh, movie clean from my mind.
[00:05:49] Uh, shaken the etch of sketch of my head. But here is your chance to set us straight. It's time for Corrections and Omissions.
[00:05:58] Music: [Corrections and Omissions Song]
[00:05:59] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow. Absolutely stunning. Great. That song came to us from Damon Gentry. Uh, great work, Damon Gentry. That was terrific. I love it. I love it. You know what. The variety, uh, earlier we heard a song, uh, uh, like a rock and roller. This has got a, a, a Nashville twang to it. Boy, Nashville still. How, how have we never played Nashville?
[00:06:24] I, I don't understand it. Why haven't I set foot on the Ryman stage? That's what I wanna know. Okay, boy, I see it written in the script. I don't wanna say these words out loud, but here we go. Let's go to the discord. Joe Tangelo writes,
[00:06:43] "The best scene that wasn't mentioned was when they leave Cindy's parents' house. Rick is driving that geo tracker looking car and has a lot of trouble getting it into first gear before finally peeling out. I love how all the clumsy driving was left in."
[00:06:58] Okay, so, so I've, uh, we've just watched the scene, uh, that Joe Tangelo was referencing. And Joe, it's even crazier, uh, because yes, you're correct.
[00:07:10] He is having quite a bit of trouble getting the, I believe Suzuki Samurai is maybe what it is. It's one of the little Suzuki, um, uh, little, uh, uh, Jeep type things that the top came off of, uh, much like a Jeep Wrangler or something like that. Uh oh, it's a Suzuki sidekick says Rupert Grimpert. I see it's been pointed out to me that later in the script, uh, Rupert Grimpert chimes in to add,
[00:07:37] "I think the car is a Suzuki Sidekick, which made me laugh because that car was a running joke in the Babes in Toyland episode."
[00:07:44] Okay. Yes. So you're probably right. It's either a Suzuki Sidekick or a Samurai, I can't remember which. Um, both incredibly perfect eighties era cars. Um, what's incredible, Joe Tangelo, is that while he is struggling to get it into gear, the car is just rolling backwards. The car rolls, I'm gonna say almost eight to 10 feet backwards, which is pretty hilarious.
[00:08:09] Um, and it appears to also have a legitimate California license plate on the, on it with like real, real numbers, which also made me laugh. Um, okay. And thank you Rupert Grimpert uh, for, uh, chiming in on that. Okay. Dave writes,
[00:08:27] "In John's director's commentary."
[00:08:29] Oh, Dave, please tell me you didn't listen to John's director's commentary. Guys, guys, please claw back some part of your life, please. You got, you don't have to give it all away.
[00:08:42] "In John's director's commentary, he says the strip tease in his bar slash arcade was shot as a wet t-shirt contest with 10 women, but he didn't end up using any of that footage because, quote, that was too much. I didn't wanna do anything gratuitous with the sensuality."
[00:09:00] Unquote. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I I take it back. Dave, thank you for listening to the director's commentary. Thank you for. For tossing hours of your life away in service of, uh, this podcast. Um, wild stuff that's crazy. And I, I mean, like part of me wishes I'd seen that footage, uh, instead of some of the footage I was forced to watch in this movie.
[00:09:29] It seems like, um, frankly, maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but, uh, a wet t-shirt contest at a bar, uh, would seem to me to be a lot less, uh, upsetting than some of the stuff that was included in this movie, uh, vis-a-vis gratuitous sensuality. Okay. Pam writes,
[00:09:47] "I am surprised that no one brought up how often these people are drinking champagne. Who drinks it that often?"
[00:09:53] We all do, Pam, you're the only one. You're the only one out there not drinking champagne. Everybody's drink. I'm drinking champagne right now. I got up this morning and I made a French press of champagne, and boy is it tasty, delicious. Producer Scott drinking a champagne right now.
[00:10:12] Look at him, putting it up to his lips. All right, Pam, I've got an answer for you in the form of another listener who called in with their own theory on what's up with all the champagne in the movie, and we're gonna find out what that theory is and answer some phone calls after a quick break. So if you don't mind, stick the fuck around.
[00:10:35] And we're back.
[00:10:38] Let's go to the phones and hear another theory about all the champagne in the movie. Champagne and Bullets. John from Portland. Let's hear it.
[00:10:46] Listener: Hey Paul. Uh, this is John from, uh, Portland, Oregon. I saw the show Champagne and Bullets. Uh, with my friends for my birthday. It was a great show. Uh, I didn't get to ask my question there, so I wanted to ask it now.
[00:10:59] Uh, do you think the reason that he has so much champagne throughout the film is due to the fact that he is a limo driver and he's just pilfering the extra champagne throughout the, uh, throughout his course of work? Uh, and is that how he's able to keep all those, uh, his friends of his, uh, uh, drinking champagne throughout it, uh, just came to my mind and was thinking about that during the show.
[00:11:26] Uh, but yeah, great show. Uh, love y'all and yeah, uh, very excited. Cheers.
[00:11:32] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay, so I guess what John is suggesting is because the character is a limo driver, he is pilfering the champagne from the the limo company or something like that, perhaps. I don't know. I think the movie just wants to suggest that, that these people are just casually drinking champagne all the time.
[00:11:52] I don't think it's interested in interrogating how they got it. They're just living that champagne and bullets lifestyle and for us to kind of poke around as to how. I don't think that's what the movie's asking. I think the movie's asking us to just sit back and enjoy the absolute insanity that is champagne and bullets.
[00:12:13] Okay. Up next is Liz from Wisconsin.
[00:12:17] Listener: Hey Paul, it's Liz from Wisconsin. I was just listening to the most recent episode about champagne and bullets, et cetera, and, uh, thought I'd remark on the question of people testing to become police officers in their fifties. As Jason said, it absolutely is possible. My dad tested for, uh, Denver PD when he was 53 and, uh, not only passed, but did well, um.
[00:12:41] Unusual, noteworthy perhaps, but he did it. So there you go. Uh, he did end up having a attack later that year and not getting to go and do it. Uh, which is less good. My point, my dad is fine now. He's not a cop. Uh, but uh, I just thought I'd offer that as proof that, you know, hey. Yeah. It's absolutely possible.
[00:13:03] Sure. Okay. So at least it's been done once. Okay. Uh, thanks guys. Bye.
[00:13:08] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow. What a roller coaster from Liz from Wisconsin. I mean, I loved, I loved hearing, um, I loved hearing about your dad. Um, not only taking the police test, but, but, but acing it, but thriving inside of the test, but devastated to hear that, uh, he had a, a heart attack at 53 or 54, so young, um, that kept him out of the job.
[00:13:35] Um, terrifying. So, uh, a real victory, uh, for, in one sense for me in terms of yes, I was right, someone my age could take and pass the, uh, the police exam. But then also Liz from Wisconsin, you have now infected me with the idea that I am maybe, but, uh, a very short period of time away from a heart attack, uh, as I am somehow your dad's age, which is also upsetting to me.
[00:14:00] Um, or maybe I was your dad's age at that time, which makes more sense. Um, but now I'm knocking on wood here 'cause now I've made myself nervous. Uh, but a great call from Liz, from Wisconsin. Thank you for sharing that. Next up, Brad from Nashville.
[00:14:15] Listener: Hey Paul. Um, you all talked a little bit about the, uh, music.
[00:14:20] But, uh, I, I don't think you really, uh, discussed the fact that John DeHart is the one singing the, uh, songs that back his own love scene. And he is a terrible singer. He is entirely off key and it is very obviously his voice that comes in as he is, uh, in the bathtub with, uh, the playmate. And it really brought up like, uh, Job Blue vibes, uh, from when, uh, Job had a, uh, mixed tape of his own thing to play during, uh, love sessions. Anyway, just wanted to touch on the absolute arrogance of John the Hart and, uh, singing the backing for his own love making. Thanks. Bye.
[00:15:16] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, you know what, uh, Brad from Nashville, you know, it's not Paul, it's Jason, uh, it's everybody has addressed their thing to Paul and it's been me the whole time.
[00:15:24] You didn't know. I, I, I can understand that, but first and foremost, to everybody who I've answered, how dare you, how dare you not respect me as the host of this episode, even though you couldn't have known. That being said. Um, yeah, no, I mean, like, I think this movie is top to bottom hubris. Um, and it is all that his singing soundtracks, uh, his own sex scenes, I think is, uh, is absolutely, uh, par for the course.
[00:15:51] I remember, I think Nick Cannon once said on the Howard Stern show that, um, Mariah Carey also liked to listen to her own music during their love making sessions. Uh, I believe that is true, and I think he also mentioned that I believe she would have restaurants play a, a playlist of her songs when she ate there, something like that.
[00:16:12] Some, uh, that might be apocryphal or maybe, uh, misattributed, but I, I'm pretty sure that's what I heard. Um, that's that. Um, oh, and we have one last call and it is from Scott from Massachusetts. Oh, Massachusetts. I, it doesn't say where in Massachusetts. So this Scott's either fucking cool as hell or an absolute piece of shit.
[00:16:34] So this better be good. Scott, let's see what you got.
[00:16:37] Listener: Hey, Paul Scott from Massachusetts calling one thing about the joke sequence from Champagne and Bullets. Uh, Jason refers to it as a, having the main character say it was a position joke. I think he introduced it as a physician joke. That's all. Have a great day.
[00:16:52] Thank you.
[00:16:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay. Alright. You know what? So we have a little bit of clarity. Scott is an asshole from Massachusetts. I don't know what town he's from, probably the South shore. My guess is Scott is from the South Shore. Uh, here. Let Scott, why don't you, Scott, Producer Scott, uh, why don't you play, why don't you stop drinking champagne?
[00:17:14] And why don't you play the clip that this fucking asshole's talking about?
[00:17:18] Movie Audio: Do you have a new joke?
[00:17:20] You know, I always got a new joke, Ben. So I got a physician joke for you. It's a very attractive young lady, goes to the doctor for a checkup. The doc doctor says, Hey, you got to disrobe. She says, I'm very shy. Can we turn the lights off? He says, okay. Turns the lights off. She takes her clothes off and she says, doctor, where should I put them? He says, right over here on top of mine.
[00:17:45] That one was good.
[00:17:46] It's quite a profession. I got another one for you, Ben. Another Doctor joke. Pick on Dr. Day. This guy with a duck on his head. He goes to the doctor. The doctor says, can I help you? The duck says, yeah, get this guy off my ass.
[00:18:01] That one was good too. You always have a good joke.
[00:18:04] Jason Mantzoukas: I don't wanna hear the jokes. Jesus Christ, Scott, I don't wanna hear the jokes again. Okay, so, so producer Scott just played me the thing, I don't know if you've heard it or not, I don't know how this works, uh, but yes, Scott from Massachusetts, you absolute piece of shit.
[00:18:20] He says physician, but it does sound quite a bit like position. Um, and so I guess I just don't appreciate the corrections that aren't really giving me information. They're just a bit of a, ah, haha, you misheard the movie. Okay. Guilty Scott from Massachusetts. But this is, again, I, I, I don't understand. This is why we should disconnect the discord.
[00:18:44] This is pointless If someone's giving me more information. I like it. I like the director's commentary information from before. But yes, Scott, I don't need it. I didn't need to be corrected on physician position. Uh, pointless. Okay, now. So many great. See in the script it has, okay, so many great corrections and omissions this week, and I don't think there were, I'll be honest, there weren't so many great ones. There.
[00:19:08] There was, in fact, only there was, so there was only a couple we could pull and many of those were terrible. So, uh uh, now it says pick a winner. It says in red in all caps, pick a winner. I mean, no. What do I got here? Well, oh, Liz from Wisconsin. Yes, Liz from Wisconsin. You win. You win for you and your dad.
[00:19:33] Uh, a a man in his fifties succeeding, thriving and succeeding wildly at the police exam. Uh, uh, uh, I'm wishing you and your dad well, uh, I'm wishing your dad well in his health and his heart health. Um, boy, oh boy. Tough stuff. Um, but, but I love it. I love hearing about, uh, uh, his success, taking the police exam.
[00:19:55] And maybe as a Last Looks here, uh, episode sometime, uh, Paul, June and I will all take the, uh, police exam, uh, with, just to see how well we do. Wouldn't that be fun? Okay. The, the winner's name I write, I say winner's name, which was Liz from Wisconsin. Uh, winner's name Liz from Wisconsin as your reward. You get this amazing song from our friend Rob, from Long Island.
[00:20:21] Music: [Winner's Song]
[00:20:22] Jason Mantzoukas: All right, thank you, Rob from Long Island for that song. Great song. Um, and just 'cause it said Long Island and I can't help but jump to things that are jumping into my head when I read things. Um, if you're not listening to the Gino Lombardo po, the, uh, John Gabrus Gino Lombardo podcast that is on CBB World, uh, you gotta listen, you gotta check it out.
[00:20:46] It's two seasons of absolute batshit Long Island insanity. Um, it is Gabrus playing his Gino Lombardo character as if he is a drive time shock jock in Long Island Radio. It is very funny. So remember, if you wanna chime in with your own thoughts about the latest episode. Hit up our discord, or don't. Just leave us a voicemail instead by calling 6 1 9 Paul Ask. P-A-U-L-A-S-K.
[00:21:15] Um, boy, I love the analog nature of leave a voicemail. Leave a voicemail, why not? Uh, it was great. It's great to hear the texture of everybody's voices and accents. I love the voicemails. Okay, coming up after one last break, Paul and I are gonna have a great chat with Suzi Barrett about her fantastic podcast, yes, Also. And I'm gonna reveal next week's new movie. But first, as promised earlier, take a little listen to this bonus deleted scene from our Champagne and Bullets live show that hints at why we selected this week's matinee episode. Take a listen.
[00:21:51] Paul Scheer: I love it. Alright, what are your names?
[00:21:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow.
[00:21:53] Audience Member: Oh, uh, Steve shira.
[00:21:55] Um, how would you guys think about remaking this as the origin story for Nundercover? Where Huck is her handler.
[00:22:05] Paul Scheer: Wow. Alright. This is a callback. Could this be the prequel to Undercover?
[00:22:12] Jason Mantzoukas: No. Where Huck is her handler. Absolutely not. He's a lunatic. I don't want, I don't want Huck anywhere near my movie. How dare. Actually, how dare you.
[00:22:26] All right, welcome back. By now. I'm sure you've noticed that every Tuesday we re-release classic How Did This Get Made episodes back into the feed. This week's matinee covered the 1991 Bruce Willis Classic Hudson Hawk, which not to brag I saw in theaters. Now that was the episode you will remember where we came up with the whole idea for Nundercover, and would you like to know what has happened in the intervening period of time?
[00:22:56] Nothing. We haven't written a word. We haven't talked about it. I'd say the only time the word in Nundercover has been brought up again, has been on podcast episodes like this one where someone from the audience brought it up. Again, a lot of times after episodes, we are effectively hit with the Men in Black machine.
[00:23:18] We re, we we revert to zero. Okay. I always feel bad. There's lovely fans always come up and ask such wonderful, specific questions based on their profound fandom of the show. And I always feel so terrible saying, I do not remember that episode, that episode that meant so much to you. That, that line, that joke, that that thing, uh, I, I've forgotten it, somehow.
[00:23:43] Um, but yet I re I remember so many of those moments from Doughboy's episodes. I'm the one saying to Doughboy, Hey, remember when this happened? And they are like, we don't, so I get it. We're all fans. So for next week's matinee, we will be revisiting an oldie episode 25. Holy shit. That is an oldie. Episode 25.
[00:24:09] That's gotta be, I mean that's what is that 2011? Wow. Okay. Episode 25, uh, which is, I, I just got confirmation 2011, uh, where we cover Halle Berry's Catwoman Boy, what an absolute banger of a movie. Um, I just re-watched all the Nolan Batman movies. Phenomenal absolute blast. So keep checking out all the replays of classic episodes every Tuesday.
[00:24:36] Okay, enough matinee talk time for Paul and I to chat with Suzi Barrett, who's an amazing improviser writer, actor, teacher, and host of the absolutely fantastic Yes, Also podcast, which is essential listening for any improv or comedy fan. If you like this podcast, if you like Bang Bang, if you like any of the comedy podcasts, if you just like comedians, if you just like hearing people talk about process and comedy, and comedy of the last 25 to 50 years, Yes, Also is an essential listen. I cannot recommend it enough. Suzi is a fantastic improviser and a terrific host. She is a great conversationalist. Paul and I have both been on the show as have a ton of people who you might know from this podcast, uh, as guests.
[00:25:23] So stay tuned for our conversation with Suzi and to play us into this just chat segment. Here's a new theme song inspired by the Shimmy slide from Champagne and Bullets. This is the Just Chat scoot by our pal, the Action Jackson five,
[00:25:41] Music: [Just Chat Song]
[00:25:45] Paul Scheer: Suzi, an interesting thing happened, I don't know, maybe about a year ago. Jason and I were both talking about your fantastic podcast. Uh, and we are, I mean, I think we're both some of the biggest fans of what you're doing, which is basically creating this giant history of improv through the performers and how people improvise.
[00:26:10] It's one of the most fascinating looks at some of my favorite performers, people that I perform with, uh, a lot, and I never knew any of this stuff about them. It is a one of my favorite things to listen to.
[00:26:22] Suzi Barrett: That is such a high compliment. You two are, have always been two of my favorite improvisers. I feel like you're senior classmen to my freshman, and, uh, I've always looked up to you both.
[00:26:33] It's just such a cool thing that, uh, that people like you are getting into the pod and sharing your wealth of wisdom and yeah, hopefully it just continues to keep growing.
[00:26:43] Jason Mantzoukas: It really is. It is. I talk about it all the time. I've talked about it on this podcast a lot. I've talked about it on every other podcast that has, has had me as a guest, or, uh, I've talked about it to anybody who's asked me to recommend, uh, a, a new podcast.
[00:26:57] It is an incredible resource. It is. Undeniably, uh, an archive of this art form, uh, that does, that simply does not exist. Like there are books about improv, of course, but there is nothing that approaches this scale and scope, uh, to what Paul was saying, like that we can be listening to you interviewing the generation of, you know, you're saying that we are the seniors to your freshmen.
[00:27:24] The Chicago generation or the seniors to our freshmen.
[00:27:27] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:27:27] Jason Mantzoukas: So to hear you talking to that generation of people, the people that are gonna talk about Jazz Freddy, or are gonna talk about those shows or those teams or those, or the advent or the, uh, the beginnings of certain stylistic moves. Um, you know, like the idea that you are talking to the generation that started the movie form or tag outs or stuff like that.
[00:27:50] Um, these are the bedrock elements of improvising that we knew. And for my generation, I feel like we spent a lot of our time stripping out the stuff they put in.
[00:28:00] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:28:01] Jason Mantzoukas: So to see the thing grow and ebb and flow as to how everybody does it. Is all inside of your show and it's incredible.
[00:28:09] Suzi Barrett: Yeah. It's, it's cool that it's, uh, also I feel like this is just the tip of a very big iceberg too.
[00:28:15] Like even, you know, when you guys both have been on the pod, uh, but I plan on having you back in the future. It's like this amorphous, organic thing that can keep building as people hear each other's stories and thoughts, then they can come back and re-reflect. I've had people like reaching out, being like, oh, this has unlocked so many memories, uh, from my time.
[00:28:34] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, cool.
[00:28:35] Suzi Barrett: Um, and it's like one of the few art forms that we see the beginning of, right in our rear view, like that you can't just go back and interview the first blues musician anymore, but you can interview some of the first long form improvisers. And that's like a magical thing that I feel the compelled to like capture.
[00:28:57] Paul Scheer: Well, what I also really love about it is. I think that it's very hard to capture the history of improv in a book.
[00:29:06] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:06] Paul Scheer: Because it's very much a person's perspective. I mean, Jason and I came up at UCB at the same time. We have many similar friends, we've done many similar shows, but the way that we got in the teachers that we had, the way that we experience it are, is completely different.
[00:29:24] What we took, what we learned. And I feel like that's the thing that, you know, sometimes a book is kind of hard pressed to do and I love that you can sit back and listen to people. Um, I think I told you like one of my favorite episodes was, uh, Carl Tart, who we performed with a bunch. And the, his lack of like, oh yeah, I don't know.
[00:29:46] I just go out there and I just do what I do and I love that. And then you hear other people who are very specific about moves and, you know, and there are these things like Jason said, that get warped. And I wonder in that seat that you're in, how do you, I think, do the hardest job, which is like to sit there and kind of craft it for a person, but also kind of help keep it all on track or tell a, a larger story or,
[00:30:09] Suzi Barrett: I, I think I, uh, I see it as almost like it's own improv scene, right?
[00:30:15] Each person who is in that chair is my scene partner. I'm basing everything organically off of what they're saying. I'm gonna follow where it's leading, but if something pops up that feels like a shiny object to me, I'm gonna jump on that. Uh, unless I see that it's making them uncomfortable, and then I'll adjust accordingly.
[00:30:33] But, uh, it is. We, we cut very little out of it. You know, once in a while there will be like a ramly tangent that doesn't matter, and the person will be like, can you cut that?
[00:30:46] Paul Scheer: Right, right, right.
[00:30:46] Suzi Barrett: Um, but, uh, but it is, it feels like, um, its own organism. It feels like we are alive. Uh, and it's a different kind of improv than I've ever done.
[00:30:57] I've never been an interviewer before. I know you guys have done this podcast for years. You're used to this kind of format. Uh, it's new to me and it feels like it scratches a, a journalistic documentary itch that I have, like my own curiosity about wanting to open every door. Um, and it, it's like this.
[00:31:17] Incredible opportunity for me to sit down with like every tree in this forest that I love, and ask each tree what it's like to be that tree, you know?
[00:31:27] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, it's so interesting because I do feel like to what both of you are saying, you know, it's an art form that we all learn how to do it in classes, or Paul is saying, uh, we've read the books or you know, there's ways to receive how to improvise, and I'm putting that in quotes.
[00:31:45] Um, but there is, everybody does it different. Um, and I think what the books and what everything can't quite capture, but I think what your show does capture very well is how everybody does it different, but how imperative it is for those people to then be able to be inside of an ensemble of other people who are doing it differently.
[00:32:07] And people's ability to succeed and thrive in this art form is their ability to collaborate and learn how, how this person does it and how thi and how I fit in a a what we talk about so little. I think we talk so often about like people's moves or this was great, or blah, blah, blah. But like teams, ensembles, this is a teamwork based art form.
[00:32:31] This is not, you know, um, solo, uh, lone wolf style, uh, comedy. This is, this thrives in ensembles and people working together, you know, I make you look good. You make me look good, is the ethos that I feel like is so imperative in this art form. And I think what you get at on the show, which I love, is how do people do this thing?
[00:32:55] How do they think they do this thing? And how do they fit in with other people? You know, that, and what I, the stuff I care about in the show the most is when you're talking about process. How do you think about this? How, how do you do it?
[00:33:09] Paul Scheer: That was the thing that was kind of eyeopening to me, was really trying to think about it.
[00:33:17] Right? Like even when I, I think when I came on too, I was like, I wanted to talk about some things that I feel like also get labeled the wrong way. Right? Because I think a lot of people have, like, it's certain, like words may be like, oh, I don't like that word, but I do. But every, but people are still using that basis.
[00:33:32] And that's the other thing too, to kind of pick out. It's like, oh, we actually are working on the same thing. We're just calling it different. We're looking at it differently. But we're.
[00:33:39] Suzi Barrett: Are you talking about things like using terms like the game of the scene? Um.
[00:33:44] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:33:44] Suzi Barrett: Yeah. Where people have categorized that or assumed that that means one style of play when really it's also the quote unquote IO style.
[00:33:54] It's just you're calling it different things or, yeah.
[00:33:57] Jason Mantzoukas: Like, and I, I think that's the mo that, and I think you've, you've illustrated the exact word that people have the most, feel the most a way about, you know?
[00:34:05] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:05] Jason Mantzoukas: Like, I feel like to some people, when you talk about the game of the scene, they, they act as though that is like an indictment of a style of play.
[00:34:13] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:13] Jason Mantzoukas: You know? Um, that I don't, I also don't agree with, you know, like, I think that is, it's just a. It's just a term, but I understand like generationally, the younger generation I think grew up in a prison of the game.
[00:34:27] Paul Scheer: Oh yeah.
[00:34:27] Suzi Barrett: And I think it depends on who your teachers have been. Um, I've heard from people, like certain teachers have a style of teaching game that is very binary.
[00:34:37] Like that's, that's the correct answer. And that's not, you got it. You missed it. Which to me is a miss. And it's unfortunate because it turns a lot of people sour on something that really boils down to just what is the most fun thing to you about this scene and what do you wanna keep playing for you and your partner and the audience?
[00:34:57] Um, what's the fun you wanna follow? Uh, yeah. But yeah. For people to, uh, feel shut down or like it's so heady that it's this suddenly left brain pursuit where they have to get the answer right, to me is a, a miss.
[00:35:12] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, this idea that like the, it's out there. Yeah. And you just need to excavate. Every scene has a game.
[00:35:18] You just need to dig around in the right place and you'll uncover it. Like it's a, like, it's a video game or something. And the reality is, the answer is that it's a pattern that you play between you and your scene partner. The game is just something between you and your scene partner. It's right there.
[00:35:34] It's not a third thing out in the world that we need to like root around and find as if it's treasure, you know?
[00:35:41] Suzi Barrett: Right.
[00:35:42] Paul Scheer: I also think it's like, like any class, whether it's a writing class, an acting class, you know, like there are professors that can take the fun. There's a joy, right, in what we're and what we do.
[00:35:55] And I feel like you can watch people get burnt out because it does feel like this elusive thing, but it's not mathematics. And it's like you watch acting like, I think a lot of, I listened to this director talk privately, so I won't not say who it was. There's a big director, uh, talk about how he has to do a bunch of takes to get actors out of their acting style.
[00:36:17] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:17] Paul Scheer: Right? Like, 'cause it's sort of like you've made all these choices and you are not making any of these choices as you are acting, you are going off of the notes and the things and your idea, and it's like, how do you break the actor down? I think you can go back to like, somebody like Kubrick did this a lot too, which is like, and not that the, and, and look, Kubrick destroyed people and uh, you know, so I mean, but it's.
[00:36:41] Suzi Barrett: And himself.
[00:36:42] Paul Scheer: Yeah, and himself and like, and I think that that's the tricky thing.
[00:36:44] It's like, how do you walk that line where you get people to feel free enough to take a chance without feeling like I'm making a mistake. And some people are good at teaching. And that's the other thing too. You're, you, you teach you, you have that ability, I think to also hear from people who have been taught. And I think a lot of teachers actually don't do that.
[00:37:04] Suzi Barrett: Yeah. Well, and there's, there's different angles. It's like a, a gem with many facets. Like there's different ways into it and.
[00:37:13] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:37:13] Suzi Barrett: You know, the UCB approach of, of game and premise is kind of one angle, but it leads to the same center of the gem, which is just, you know, activated listening and energized playfulness. Um, and I think, uh, it's interesting we do what we do in pursuit of making comedy. Uh, there is improv that doesn't do that, but we all do that. We wanna be, do funny scenes ultimately, or make funny shows. I've noticed in my years of teaching, there is such a thing as a good improviser who is not a funny person.
[00:37:45] I've seen it and I've seen them do funny scenes, right, that they, you know, um, so I think there's like different methods that feel more like water to certain fish and certain methods that feel like air to the birds. You know, a person who isn't a funny person might not succeed in the, the kind of premise method 'cause they're not good at finding funny from the outside in and then initiating from that place.
[00:38:09] But they can do a great improv scene and be very successful in a funny way that's just not the same inroad. Um, and that's something I like about this podcast too, is I'm like, you know, diving deeper into Groundlings training and, um, and. Early, early IO and like you said, people who were like the very first ones to try a tag or do a sweep edit, and it's like to dissect, um, the history of how people figured out what made something funnier or more successful or more fun to play is a wild privilege to have.
[00:38:46] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, I mean I think that like, just in our, uh, generational lifetime, so the, this 25 years, I feel like when we started, uh, Paul and I both started at UCB in New York.
[00:38:57] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:58] Jason Mantzoukas: Um, so never Paul you never went to Chicago even for like classes or something. So never Chicago, but so we are receiving.
[00:39:05] The UCB, uh, Armando Diaz, uh, Ali Farian generation of, you know, the family, essentially. We're, we're receiving the movie form. You know, that, that the families, you know, uh, signature style was the movie form that they had created, and they'd created this form that had like, it, like in that way that sometimes improv does.
[00:39:28] The elements of the movie form had fully invaded everything else. So like, filmic, description, pervaded, all of, AssCat. All, and, and then as we started to learn, all of our heralds had filmic kind of language. This kind of, we.
[00:39:45] Suzi Barrett: That's so interest.
[00:39:45] Jason Mantzoukas: We see this person is this, we see that we take you to that, blah, blah, blah.
[00:39:49] Paul Scheer: When Adam McKay did that the first time at an ascat, it blew my mind.
[00:39:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Same.
[00:39:53] Paul Scheer: Because it was like, whoa, wait, what is happening? Yeah.
[00:39:56] Suzi Barrett: So he, so they would edit, like, like let's say they lead a tag and that they're bringing you to the doctor's office and they say like, we, we take you to a doctor's office, and we see that the, the doctor is immaculately dressed and has a Rolex on.
[00:40:08] Paul Scheer: Yes.
[00:40:08] Suzi Barrett: Wow.
[00:40:09] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:40:09] Jason Mantzoukas: Not, not all the time, not every edit. Not every time. All of those tools that the family had built up with Dell as the movie form tools had per had like pervaded everything. Right. And so much so that when we came up, it was just part of how we worked.
[00:40:27] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:40:27] Jason Mantzoukas: We worked with all of that stuff and then slowly, but what that stuff did was provide a bridge for the audience to get into faster moving scene work.
[00:40:38] You know, like you didn't have to take the time to illustrate that now we're in a dentist's office and I'm the evil dentist who's the villain of the scene, blah, blah, blah. Because the scenic description at the very beginning set it up.
[00:40:51] Suzi Barrett: Yeah.
[00:40:51] Jason Mantzoukas: You know, and it, it, it moved the au it jumped the audience forward in time without them having to get there within five lines. You know?
[00:40:59] Paul Scheer: And it also was a way to kind of lay in jokes, right? Because it was this thing that you have a blank stage, a bunch of people up there. Just, you know, in their jeans and t-shirts and now all of a sudden, visually it pulled you in. I think that, like, that was a thing that was kind of interesting for me.
[00:41:16] I was coming from slightly more of a costume based, or like a look based improv. So seeing that, like for the first time before I started taking classes, I was like, oh wow, you can use your words to paint it all out. And you know, and the audience is, you know, it's the difference with the audience finding out that you're in a tuxedo or being painted with a tuxedo. Either way, you know, it's gonna be fulfilling. But it was fun to see.
[00:41:39] Jason Mantzoukas: And then I think in, in only maybe 10 or so years later, all of that stuff was stripped out.
[00:41:45] Paul Scheer: Yep.
[00:41:45] Jason Mantzoukas: In a way that felt to me important because I also, I felt like the audience had already caught up. Like the audience didn't need that bridge language anymore.
[00:41:56] We could still move just as fast without having to give all of the, without having to step out of the scene to be this other omniscient kind of character who gets to describe and gets to that went away completely. Nobody does that anymore. Everything is internal again.
[00:42:13] Suzi Barrett: Isn't it cool that, like on the micro level, this form improv is something that is about the relationship between the people on stage and the, the audience in the room that night, like the, on the micro level, but what you're describing shows that it's also that on a macro level that over a period of 10 years and audience's needs and reactions determined the course of the very art form.
[00:42:35] Paul Scheer: Oh yeah.
[00:42:35] Suzi Barrett: And that something was stripped down because the audience didn't need it anymore.
[00:42:39] Paul Scheer: Yes.
[00:42:39] Suzi Barrett: Like it, it's like a fractal structure, like the, the whole is the, the part. Yeah.
[00:42:44] Paul Scheer: I don't know if I talk, I don't know if I talked about this on your show, but it's something I talk about a lot. When we first came to LA or UCB first came to LA, I felt like we needed to back up a handful of steps for the audience to catch up with where we were in New York.
[00:42:59] And that was something like, one of the reasons that we, uh, built, um, I guess at that point it was MySpace was to show, no, no, this is improv. You're, we're basing this on, you we're interviewing you, this's not a plant. We're bringing you up. Like it was almost like proving to the audience like, this is improv.
[00:43:18] And then it, all of a sudden it caught up. But it was like those first, maybe a year. I feel like it was like just teaching the audience who hadn't seen this style, how to what it was.
[00:43:27] Suzi Barrett: And you could feel that palpably, like in a, in the room.
[00:43:31] Paul Scheer: Oh yeah.
[00:43:31] Suzi Barrett: In a show like MySpace or Facebook, you could feel like the audience was onboard more than a show where you were just getting a suggestion and doing scenes.
[00:43:39] Paul Scheer: I also, I also felt the audience was, and this is, I, now I'm full LA. I don't think the audience was as hip as they were in New York. 'Cause we were making jokes in New York that I think were maybe harder or, and the audience would.
[00:43:52] Jason Mantzoukas: The audience, I would, I agree a hundred percent. We're talking 2004, 2005.
[00:43:57] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:43:57] Jason Mantzoukas: The, or 2005, 2006. I guess. The audience, I believe didn't get a lot of it. It was moving too fast.
[00:44:03] Suzi Barrett: Hmm.
[00:44:03] Jason Mantzoukas: Now, IO existed, Groundlings existed, but they were much, they weren't as fast. They weren't, and we were, we were used to an, a younger hipper audience in New York that was just showing up a lot to shows.
[00:44:17] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:44:17] Jason Mantzoukas: So they were with, they had grown with us in a lot of ways, or they were part of it. And it felt like in LA it took a minute to find that audience that was like, oh, whoa, this is it. You know?
[00:44:27] Suzi Barrett: What's amazing to me is like in talking to people like Craig Kakowski, who were, you know, like ground floor kind of io.
[00:44:35] Jason Mantzoukas: The best, the, the, the absolute, the absolute fucking king.
[00:44:38] Suzi Barrett: The, yeah, the best. Um, but these like old school Chicago people, uh, Brian Stacks, another one who, uh, they observed that like when Besser and the UCB four kind of emerged as this force in, uh, in Chicago and then moved to, or I guess it was the family that, that, that emerged like this. They said they pushed the style of improv to be a much faster taggier style.
[00:45:02] And what's interesting to me is like, then they brought that to New York and kind of led the charge there. Now you're talking about bringing that to la, but it all kind of originated from like Besser and Adam McKay and Ian, these like fast brains. And that's wild to me that people in an art form can be so, uh, pivotal in their own like style and the way their brain works that they can move the entire, uh, paradigm.
[00:45:30] Jason Mantzoukas: Simply, simply by being the way they are. A Besser especially, I would say. 'cause McKay, I think McKay's impact is so, felt so large at Saturday Night Live where he goes and then becomes head writer and dominates that, uh, that environment. But Besser's importance cannot be underestimated and Ian as well, because they are driven to New York to start a school, to teach us their version of it.
[00:45:57] Their fast, you know what they would call punk rock improv, right?
[00:46:01] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:46:01] Jason Mantzoukas: You know, like, we wanna play fast songs, fast short songs, boom, boom, boom. Move it quick, quick, quick. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. You know, it was all punk rock. It felt like that and, and it wasn't, you know, notably, Walsh in the same group is an annoyance guy.
[00:46:17] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:18] Jason Mantzoukas: Like when you took a when before the curriculum as it is got codified. When you took a Walsh class, you were taking an annoyance class, right? You were taking a freewheeling, you know, open-ended, anything is possible style annoyance class.
[00:46:36] Paul Scheer: Which was the coolest thing because the four of them came from very different. Like it was like you were, you weren't even just taking curriculum, you were taking four different perspectives on the same, like the core idea of what everyone was doing, but it was wildly different.
[00:46:50] Suzi Barrett: Yeah.
[00:46:50] Jason Mantzoukas: And very, and I will say as a result, very confusing.
[00:46:53] Paul Scheer: Yes. Right? I mean, I mean, but I do think that like there was an attitude of, alright.
[00:47:02] I've taught you what I need to teach you. Now you go over here. So like, I took Walsh later in my run. So like, alright. I was probably with some people who had never really improvised, but then what he was doing was like freeing me up in the strictness that I'd already come to. Like, it was like, like you could kind of do any of them in any order.
[00:47:19] Although I think, you know, it would, it, it probably was. I mean, coming from Besser going down.
[00:47:25] Suzi Barrett: What's the best order?
[00:47:26] Paul Scheer: Yeah. I mean I think actually coming from Besser going down. That's the way I did it. It was almost like the hardest structure into the looses structure.
[00:47:35] Jason Mantzoukas: That's tough. That's tough. But it was like, no, I felt very lucky that I got, um, I got Armando first. Right. Which Paul, you didn't, 'cause Armando hadn't arrived yet when you started.
[00:47:45] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:47:45] Jason Mantzoukas: I felt very lucky because Armando was,
[00:47:47] Paul Scheer: Armando is awesome.
[00:47:48] Jason Mantzoukas: The Armando Diaz, I feel like doesn't get enough, um, credit.
[00:47:52] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:47:52] Jason Mantzoukas: Doesn't get enough. Uh, love as truly the, the, for generationally for us, the goat teacher.
[00:48:01] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:01] Jason Mantzoukas: Like the person who, who really helped, um, take all of what the, what, you know. 'cause I took Armando a couple of times. I, he, he, uh, was a mother, a long time mother, coach, uh, mother being the, the team that I was on. Um, he really did a great job synthesizing everybody's stuff from Ian to Besser and, and giving it to you in a package that was understandable.
[00:48:26] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:48:26] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:27] Jason Mantzoukas: So that it didn't seem like, well, wait a minute, Besser said this thing, and that directly contradicts this thing that Walsh said, or this thing that Amy said. How do I justify those two things? You know? And Armando is very good at doing that, uh, of, of, of say, of kind of what we're talking about saying, giving you the information in a way that is.
[00:48:48] They are all just trying to say this.
[00:48:50] Suzi Barrett: Yeah.
[00:48:51] Jason Mantzoukas: And this, we can, this, this move forward, we can all agree is necessary. They're just telling you how to do it differently.
[00:48:57] Suzi Barrett: Yeah. Which to me is the difference between a great teacher and a great improviser. It's like, yes.
[00:49:02] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:49:02] Suzi Barrett: A, a great teacher is a, basically a translator. They're like taking the, the wealth of information and then making it kind of palatable. Understandable. You know?
[00:49:13] Paul Scheer: Armando was also one of those people who came in knowing a lot of different forms and wanting to, like, he taught us the Herald in the Dark, which was one of the coolest things. And it also taught us to play slower and play in different avenues.
[00:49:28] Right? Because, uh, I just think it's, I think it's good to have different teachers, but I guess the question that I have for you is, you know, you're listening to Jason and I, we could keep you here forever, but like, what are, what are the episodes that you felt like, alright, I'm. I'm in. You know, if you're a person, you're in Texas, there's no improv theater, but you're trying to do something or you're interested in it, like what's like a good entry point for people?
[00:49:53] Because I think if you're an improviser, jump in at any point, you're gonna find great stuff. But if there's people out there like, oh, I wanna understand more, I wanna like, what are good introductory episodes for people? If that's something at the top of your head.
[00:50:04] Suzi Barrett: That's such a good question. Um, it, it depends.
[00:50:07] There's maybe two avenues for this. One is like, if you want more, um, context and overview of long form itself, uh, or if you want like, practical tools for doing better scenes, um, uh, in the first lane are like Craig Kowski, Brian Stack, uh, both of you guys, um, you know, Kowski and Stack are good for the Chicago context.
[00:50:32] You guys are good for the New York context. Julie Brister is another New York that's, uh, early adopter.
[00:50:38] Jason Mantzoukas: It's a great one.
[00:50:39] Suzi Barrett: Will Hines also.
[00:50:40] Paul Scheer: Oh yeah.
[00:50:41] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, incredible. Yeah. I'll, and i'll throw in, Getherd. Oh, in that, in that New York, uh, contingent as well.
[00:50:48] Suzi Barrett: A hundred percent. Um, but, uh, in the, in the lane of, uh, practical improv advice, I think Mike McClendon's episode is great with a lot of like, really, uh, actionable simple tools and methods. Um. Teo Yang had some fun hot takes on harold's and openings that I really liked. Uh, man, I'm forgetting so many people.
[00:51:12] Paul Scheer: But this is a great, this is a great way to start. And, you know, and I also like.
[00:51:16] Jason Mantzoukas: It's good for our audience as well, because our audience are not necessarily improv diehards. So it's good to be able to give people different ways in.
[00:51:27] Um, because, and, and, and I would say too, the way that, like, we talk about, like if, for people, whenever somebody says, like, how, how can I get somebody into your podcast, to our podcast, rather, I'm always like, oh, have them pick a movie that they like, you know, or so, and that's the same for your podcast. Look on the list of people that are there and pick out the people that you like or, or recognize.
[00:51:49] And for, for listeners of this podcast, it could be Paul and myself, but it could also be, like I said, Getherd or Paul F Tompkins, or.
[00:51:56] Suzi Barrett: Yes.
[00:51:57] Jason Mantzoukas: There's, there's a, a lot of people there in your, uh. That are gonna be recognizable to folks. And then once you're in, then just start. 'cause there are, one of the things that I love about the podcast, even though I'm couldn't be more inside improv, is you're interviewing generationally younger people that I just do not know.
[00:52:16] Suzi Barrett: Right.
[00:52:16] Jason Mantzoukas: And to hear. That generation talk. Boy is that exciting. You know?
[00:52:20] Suzi Barrett: And that will be relatable to a lot of your listeners. Like I, I try to get all the Dropout kids on.
[00:52:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah.
[00:52:26] Paul Scheer: Oh yeah.
[00:52:26] Suzi Barrett: Jacob Wysocki is another great hanger of an episode. Yeah, yeah. Um, Jamie Moyer, another great one. She came up through Second City, Detroit and has kind of a different angle on everything.
[00:52:36] More emotional play, more like freeing up your right brain, your inner child, you know?
[00:52:40] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:52:41] Suzi Barrett: But yeah, you're right. Find, find whatever strand you wanna pull first, and then you, you won't be able to stop unraveling it, I think.
[00:52:49] Jason Mantzoukas: But I, the, the, I will say, just for me though, the, like you've mentioned a couple of my favorites, Kakowski I think is just one of my favorite, uh, convers.
[00:52:56] It's a, he, he is, he's always the person at a party that I'm excited to talk to.
[00:53:00] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:53:00] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:53:01] Jason Mantzoukas: You know, so I'm al anytime I can hear him, uh, I, I thought that episode was great. And then just two of my absolute favorite improvisers you've, I you've interviewed, uh, which is, uh, Dassy and Steph Weir.
[00:53:12] Suzi Barrett: Oh, yes. I completely forgot about them. Yes.
[00:53:15] Jason Mantzoukas: To have both of those, like true geniuses. Um.
[00:53:19] Paul Scheer: So funny.
[00:53:21] Jason Mantzoukas: You know, who oftentimes they're a married couple, so they, they work together on every level. Um, I thought both of those episodes were invaluable.
[00:53:29] Paul Scheer: And the other part of this that I think is kind of amazing is right now we are living in a time no matter where you live, no matter what your access is for a couple of bucks, you can watch some of these people, uh, Jason and myself included, improvising on stage in New York, in Los Angeles.
[00:53:46] And it's, that's something that I really think is awesome, right? Uh, I don't know how much I love videotaping improv, but I also, I I love the idea of that.
[00:53:58] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, you mean live stream?
[00:53:59] Paul Scheer: Live stream.
[00:54:00] Jason Mantzoukas: You mean livestream?
[00:54:00] Paul Scheer: Yes, yes. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. Uh, yeah. Uh, like that to me is something that I think is really cool.
[00:54:05] Like, you know, whereas we probably, we heard a lot of stories. We never get to see any of these people and you could watch people do fine shows, like, you know what I'm saying? Then that's, then that's good to watch a fine show. Like it could be like, maybe it's a great show, but it's also like sometimes it's like, oh, you get to see the whole thing.
[00:54:21] It does. It's not mythologized as much, which I think is a good thing sometimes too.
[00:54:26] Suzi Barrett: Yeah.
[00:54:26] Paul Scheer: You see the balance of it.
[00:54:27] Suzi Barrett: And that's one of the goals of our podcast too, is to not only be this repository of improv history, but also basically very, very, very dirt cheap masterclasses.
[00:54:37] Paul Scheer: Right.
[00:54:38] Suzi Barrett: Um, and you know, I, Susan Messing was in town a few months ago and I took her masterclass and it was basically all the same content as her part two of our also episode.
[00:54:48] So I was like, man, for eight bucks a month, people, it's like a cup of coffee. Yeah. And they're getting six extra episodes a month that it's just, when I was coming up, the only option was to spend hundreds of dollars on an eight week class. And now it's like you can spend a little bit of money and get all of this knowledge and all these like exercises and. Listen to people.
[00:55:07] Jason Mantzoukas: And I love the part of, it's what you're talking about right there. I love the, how did you come up? It's great. It's great to hear how people found improv, who their teachers were, et cetera. Great, fine. What I, what I digest with such glee is process is how do you? Because you know, I, as much as if I talk to Stack or something like that, I'm happy to hear tales of the old days.
[00:55:33] I wanna hear about Jazz, Freddy, blah, blah, blah, but I really want to hear, how do you do this?
[00:55:38] Suzi Barrett: Mm-hmm.
[00:55:38] Jason Mantzoukas: How, what are you, you know, like that to me is what your podcast is giving. I, especially in that second half that I, and I would come back to the podcast and just do three hours of process questions from the audience.
[00:55:52] You know what I mean?
[00:55:52] Suzi Barrett: Yeah, yeah.
[00:55:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Like, that's the stuff that we can all mythologize and, and romanticize, uh, uh, nostalgically for, like, I was there when, you know, this happened and that happened. I was in the room when blah, blah, blah. Who cares? What I'm really interested in, what I'm really curious about is kind of what we're talking about is how do, even now, 25 years in, the fact that I'm still watching people, like I watched Brian Stack in Washington, DC during Grave Water a couple of years ago, play incredibly economically with seeing partners with such few lines, making the most, with such few lines. Whereas then I would go on stage in the same exact show and just drown in improvised lines that I was, that I was the one doing that I was, I couldn't immediately do what he was doing.
[00:56:45] Paul Scheer: Right.
[00:56:46] Jason Mantzoukas: And that was making me so frustrated. And I've spent the last three years trying to do what he was doing. It's incredible. You know, um, that's all I want to talk about is, is even 25 years in, I think for those of us who are still obsessed with, or still invested in doing regular shows, there is still so much further to go. You know?
[00:57:07] Paul Scheer: Well that's, I mean, that's the thing that you brought to me, which is like, thinking about it in a way, looking at it differently. Like, like it's even setting little goals for myself for fun. Like, I love performing, uh, and I love doing this, but like, I think about it in a way that I haven't thought about it in a long time because it is like analyzing the moves and trying to work against certain instincts. And I love that ab ability, especially as we get into it.
[00:57:33] Uh, and you, you teach, so you, you're, you, you, this is a whole entry point for anyone in the world of comedy. Go to your website, listen to the podcast, subscribe to this super cast. Uh, you get all this bonus content, you get a a bonus Instagram as well. Some fun stuff from there.
[00:57:50] Suzi Barrett: Oh yeah. You can become our close friends on Instagram.
[00:57:52] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[00:57:52] Suzi Barrett: And then allows you to, uh, submit questions to our future guests directly.
[00:57:57] Paul Scheer: It's really cool.
[00:57:58] Suzi Barrett: So like, when both of you came on, you had people who had like reached out specifically to you with questions. It's, it's a cool access.
[00:58:04] Paul Scheer: Let me ask you one question before we let you go. Uh, I think when I first started doing improv, uh, it felt like, wow, this style, this long form style is not.
[00:58:20] Like, I can't take this on the road. And now all I'm seeing are people doing improv, longform improv on the road. And I wanted to get your take on like, what, what do you think changed? What do, like, 'cause we're talking about, oh, well LA had to catch up, or this place had to catch up. Like, what, what do you think is different?
[00:58:37] Like that makes it something that people. Now it's like a, a, like an art form, like standup or something like that.
[00:58:43] Suzi Barrett: I feel like, uh, from, from where I sit, it worked on the road before in colleges. Like, you know, when I was in college, even like, you know, there was word of an improv group coming through town.
[00:58:58] We knew what Second City was. Uh, we knew to like it because Whose Line existed. So there was like, that was something that college kids would see. I think the difference now with people like you guys and Ben Schwartz and the Dropout kids like selling out these huge venues is that now you guys have the benefits of like a, a, a fame level, a clout with the general public.
[00:59:21] So people know to trust. Like they see Ben Schwartz on a marquee and they go, I love that guy. He's so funny. Right. I don't know what this is. And often I've done a couple of his tour shows and he'll poll the audience before the show and be like, how many of you have seen improv before? And like a third, like a thousand out of 3000 will clap.
[00:59:41] And then it's like, how many people have no idea what this is? And you thought you were gonna see a standup show and it's like a raucous cheer.
[00:59:46] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow.
[00:59:47] Paul Scheer: You know, it's something I just started doing on the last tour that, that we did was I started asking, do you, do people know what improv is? And the, and it was resoundingly no.
[00:59:57] And what I think I was able to do for the first time, and I'm like, I can't believe I haven't done this. It's what I kind of do with when we do with How Did This Get Made, kinda set the tone. I'm like, this is what you're gonna see. This is what's gonna happen. Like ul, like in the very, in the very baseline. Like, we're making this stuff up, we're talking to you, we're gonna use it to improvise.
[01:00:15] Like we kind of just let them in on it. And I felt like the shows that we did on this last tour, they always are really fun. But I felt like they were really fun, right from, right from Go. And I think the difference was the, like for a majority of that audience, they're like, I think they're like, oh, is it gonna be a standup show now?
[01:00:33] Is, is somebody else gonna come out? Like, what am I seeing? And I feel like letting them in and you forget, oh my god. Right. They don't exactly know what they're seeing.
[01:00:40] Suzi Barrett: And it's so fun to do shows for people who are about to have their minds blown.
[01:00:45] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[01:00:46] Suzi Barrett: Who have never seen improv, and they're about to see like the top level of improv from people who have done it for 25 years and it's an art form they didn't even know existed. That's fun. That's a whole new layer that's beyond doing great shows for an Ass Cat crowd or a crowd that's mostly improvisers. You know?
[01:01:04] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[01:01:04] Jason Mantzoukas: I also think like I can, I don't think we can underestimate how much podcasts, comedy, podcasts.
[01:01:10] Suzi Barrett: Yes.
[01:01:10] Jason Mantzoukas: Have educated a generation to receive, if not improv comedy, which in some cases, Comedy Bang Bang or, um, Besser's show, um.
[01:01:22] Paul Scheer: Improv for Humans.
[01:01:23] Jason Mantzoukas: Improv for humans, you know, that is straight improv, scenic based improv. Uh, we get that. But even our show or other comedy shows are at least priming people for, uh, a style of comedy that then when they go to Ben Schwartz or when they go to Dinosaur, when they go to, you know, any of these touring shows, they are, they understand improv a little bit more than just a cold audience who just is like, what is it? You know?
[01:01:51] Suzi Barrett: A hundred percent I think. Yeah.
[01:01:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah. Comedy podcasts have done a little bit seeded the, the terrain a little bit, uh, educated people enough to get them to the show, you know?
[01:02:03] Paul Scheer: Right. And even if they don't know why they're there, they're excited to be there, which is the difference between, uh, and I think I may have talked about this on your show, uh, us uh, respecto going to, uh, Minneapolis Mall of America and doing a show on a Friday night at eight o'clock and people being angry, uh, you know. Yeah. And there's no, there was no kill yourself was said in the first five minutes. I was like, all right, well, not gonna win over this crowd. Um, Suzi, this has been awesome. Uh, like we said, we love your show.
[01:02:34] Jason Mantzoukas: It's the best.
[01:02:35] Paul Scheer: If you're in LA, look up Suzi because, uh, if you're interested in any of this stuff, she's teaching. She's out there, she's doing it all.
[01:02:42] Suzi Barrett: Come find me. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on and, uh, yeah. Hope to have you guys back on the show even. This was awesome. I wanna have you guys back on Yes, Also together.
[01:02:52] Paul Scheer: Oh my gosh.
[01:02:52] Suzi Barrett: And do more of this. It's great.
[01:02:54] Paul Scheer: So fun.
[01:02:54] Jason Mantzoukas: Uh, for, for everybody listening on our side. You know, go seek this podcast out. I, it, it, it, it will be incredibly informative and, and also very funny.
[01:03:07] Paul Scheer: Yes. Oh, it's so fun.
[01:03:08] Jason Mantzoukas: Scenes often break out in your interviews.
[01:03:11] Suzi Barrett: Yeah.
[01:03:11] Jason Mantzoukas: And it's a very funny way to oftentimes illustrate something that the people are the interviewee and you are talking about. And that is also a very fun, unique element to the show, which I always enjoy.
[01:03:22] Paul Scheer: Yeah.
[01:03:23] Suzi Barrett: Yeah. Cool. Well thanks for having me and, uh, thanks again for all the, the love and support of the pod. Uh, it's very awesome.
[01:03:31] Paul Scheer: Alright, we will talk to you later. Thanks Suzi.
[01:03:33] Suzi Barrett: Thank you.
[01:03:34] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay. We did it. Thanks again to Suzi Barrett.
[01:03:37] Now it's finally time to announce our next movie. Next week we'll be going from boobs and shooters to Ice Cubes and computers. Okay. No, what was that? So that rhymes. I don't like that. I don't like, I don't like being forced. I don't like rhymes being sprung on me. Wow, that, that was shocking. That my whole system reacted to that.
[01:04:00] So I'm going to, I'm not, I, you can keep all this in, but next week, uh, we're, I'm, I'm not gonna do this whole rhyming we do, I guess we do rhymes. Boy, I don't know. This. We're beco, we're becoming, I, what, what, what, what do, what are we doing? We just do rhyming stuff. Now. What? This, this, the show's becoming too cute, Scott.
[01:04:19] We're too. We, we can't be this cute. Next week we're gonna be covering Ice Cube's, movie War of the Worlds. And if you haven't watched this, I gotta, I gotta tell you, you have to check it out. It's absolutely bananas. I guess you guys have all been demanding it and, uh, I, I'll be honest, whether you asked for it or not, we absolutely were gonna have to cover this because having now seen it and talked about it, this was nuts.
[01:04:47] Um, uh, the movie stars Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Greg, uh, a bunch of other people, uh, here's the breakdown of the plot. You don't need, do you need a breakdown of the plot? Do you need? It's it's War of the Worlds guys, except What If War of the Worlds took place on a computer screen? Because Cube is on a computer the whole movie. Rotten Tomatoes rates this movie at 2%. And for our review snippet, I'll pull a quote from the only positive review of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes. Jordan Hoffman from Entertainment Weekly writes,
[01:05:22] "Is this movie really that bad? The answer is, dot dot dot absolutely not. It's certainly stupid, but it's also a great deal of fun. War of the Worlds is never boring. It is filled with entertaining lines, and it has a cheese factor that is perfectly self-aware."
[01:05:38] I agree with Jordan Hoffman right here. And I think, you know, without, you know, giving away too much, I think we all felt similarly. We had a blast just as, as Jordan Hoffman did here.
[01:05:50] It's, it is, the cheese factor is perfectly self-aware. I think they're having a blast in this movie. You know what, uh, let's listen to the trailer.
[01:05:58] Trailer Audio: Dad, when's the last time you left the office?
[01:06:01] That's classified.
[01:06:04] Our most precious resource on Earth is data. And data is food for the superior Intelligence.
[01:06:15] Eyewitness video is coming in from all over the world. Terrifying machines rising out of these meteors.
[01:06:23] Get away from that!
[01:06:30] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay, that's the trailer. I think you get it now. So, so tune in. It's gonna be a great one. Uh, one last thing that, uh, we don't mention in the episode, but I think is worth mentioning here, uh, for War of the Worlds, is that the very real tagline for this movie is quote,
[01:06:50] "It's worst than you think."
[01:06:52] Unquote. You can only watch War of the World's on Amazon Prime, but even if you have ad-free prime video, guess what?
[01:07:02] You're gonna be receiving quite a few Amazon ads during this movie. Uh, there is, I don't wanna say anything, but one of the characters is driving an Amazon delivery truck. So that's part of the movie. Um, but you know what, here's the thing. I don't love that next week's movie's only available on a subscription service.
[01:07:22] And we always try and look out for you guys and keep it such that our movies are available on free streaming services, many of which are available through your library. I'm talking about your Canopies, your Libbys your Hoopla. These are free digital media services that are offered by your local library.
[01:07:43] Uh, uh, you can, you can watch a lot of the movies that we cover. They have a, a surprisingly robust, uh, uh, library of stuff that you can get. Um, and they have eBooks and they have audiobooks. So it's not just, uh, uh, your library isn't just helping you with how did this get made movies. It's also helping you listen to all the Bosch books, uh, uh, uh, as audio books, you know, uh, what are you up to?
[01:08:08] I mean, if I'm. If I, I, I'm spending the summer re-listening to the, uh, Star Wars Thrawn audio books. Guess what? They're available through the library. So, Hoopla, Canopy, and Libby, these are free digital streaming services that are available through your library. We love the libraries. We love the librarians that show up, um, to our shows.
[01:08:30] There's always quite a few of them in the audience. Um, and, uh, as they say in Boise, I think they, I think Boise had the right idea. Put an exclamation point at the end of all our libraries. Stop asking about the library. Stop, employ, stop giving libraries a question mark or a period at the end. The library?
[01:08:48] It's too soft. We, we gotta get, we have to reiterate it, that we are Library!
[01:08:55] That's it for Last Looks. If you listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, rate and review us. I know we always say it at the end of the episode. People forget to do it, but it does mean something. So do it up. Please also make sure you are following us on your podcast app and have automatic downloads turned on.
[01:09:12] It helps the show and we appreciate it. Visit us on all social media @HDTGM. And a big thanks to our producers, Scott Sonne and Molly Reynolds. Our movie Picking Producer, Avaryl Halley, and our audio engineer Casey Halford. An incredible team of people who make this absolutely dumb show run so well. We will see you next week for War of the Worlds.
[01:09:36] Do yourselves a favor and watch it beforehand. It's a good one. Disconnect the Discord as I can't, I mean, boy, I, I feel like I've got hives from talking about the discord so much In the last hour, I've gonna have to go and do an EpiPen. Eat shit, everybody.