Seth Meyers Returns Again

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard Episode: Seth Meyers Returns Again Release Date: July 28, 2025

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Introduction and Guest Overview

In this engaging episode of Armchair Expert, host Dax Shepard is joined by co-host Lily Padman to welcome comedian, television host, writer, actor, and producer Seth Meyers. Meyers is best known for his long-standing role on "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) and as the host of his own late-night show, "Late Night with Seth Meyers" on NBC and Peacock.

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Early Experiences and SNL Stories

Seth Meyers dives into his early days on Saturday Night Live, discussing the challenges and triumphs he faced during his tenure. He reflects on the highly competitive environment and shares anecdotes about collaborating with fellow cast members.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [04:07]: "One of the reasons I love comedy is my dad. He didn't just come to comedy because I got interested in it. And I would say the other way around, but maybe my second year of SNL was probably the roughest one..."

Meyers recounts a memorable encounter with the late Shimon Peres, former President of Israel, highlighting the surreal experience of meeting a world leader while feeling unprepared, only to discover a personal connection through his Wikipedia page.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [10:31]: "So when you say it was one of those things where I knew Shimon Peres is a name I would be able to fill out in a crossword, but didn't know much, and then I found my Wikipedia page on his computer—it really was something special."

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Family Dynamics and Parenting

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around Seth Meyers' family life, particularly his relationship with his father and the dynamics of parenting. Meyers shares heartfelt stories about his children's interactions and the influence of his father's mentoring on his career.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [22:00]: "Learning how to shovel is like, apply yourself to the thing you were most interested in doing. That's the hardest part about school."

He discusses the delicate balance of incorporating his family into his public persona without overstepping, ensuring his children understand the context of their appearances in his work.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [54:33]: "I want to make sure they know I put a ton of thought into it, and I'll obviously own whatever piece of it I got wrong. And Alexi is very helpful with that too."

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Stand-up Comedy vs. Talk Show Hosting

Meyers explores the differences between his roles as a stand-up comedian and a late-night talk show host. He emphasizes the importance of embracing vulnerability in stand-up, contrasting it with the necessity of projecting confidence and competence on his talk show.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [36:32]: "In stand-up, there's a competence to being a good stand-up. But it's fun to talk about the things I'm bad at."

He reflects on the evolution of his intended audience and the shift in his comedic focus, particularly during challenging political times.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [62:22]: "We're going to shift our attitude into being honest. But also, no one's gonna take away our ability to be happy in the time we spend together."

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Evolution of the Late Night Show Industry

The episode delves into the competitive landscape of late-night television, discussing the camaraderie and rivalry among hosts like Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and others. Meyers shares insights from his experience during Netflix's "Strike Force" experience, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and mutual respect.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [73:04]: "One of the many reasons to watch Colbert's show is there's a real paternal instinct with him. Whereas Jimmy as a human might be the closest to an actual host. He's like a life host."

He highlights the unique aspects of each host's style and the collective effort to maintain the show's quality amidst external pressures.

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Personal Anecdotes and Close Relationships

Meyers shares personal stories that shed light on his character and relationships. From mishaps like dropping his bag during an interview to humorous exchanges about parenting, these anecdotes provide a glimpse into his life beyond the spotlight.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [79:41]: "I really loved being here with you. You're wonderful in all the ways."

He also touches on his friendships with fellow comedians and the enduring bonds formed during their time on SNL.

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Reflections on Career and Future

As the conversation wraps up, Seth Meyers reflects on his achievements and contemplates the future of his career. He expresses contentment with his current path while acknowledging the inherent uncertainties in the entertainment industry.

Notable Quote:

Seth Meyers [60:00]: "Show up and do the work. That's the only part they're paying you to do. It's the only part you're good at."

Meyers emphasizes the importance of resilience and maintaining passion for his craft, regardless of external challenges.

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Closing Thoughts

The episode concludes on a lighthearted note, with Dax Shepard and Lily Padman engaging in playful banter about everyday experiences and personal quirks. Their camaraderie and genuine affection for Seth Meyers create a warm and relatable atmosphere, encapsulating the essence of Armchair Expert.

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Notable Quotes Summary:

• Dax Shepard [04:07]: "One of the reasons I love comedy is my dad..."
• Seth Meyers [10:31]: "...discover a personal connection through his Wikipedia page."
• Seth Meyers [22:00]: "Learning how to shovel is like, apply yourself..."
• Seth Meyers [54:33]: "I want to make sure they know I put a ton of thought into it..."
• Seth Meyers [36:32]: "In stand-up, there's a competence to being a good stand-up..."
• Seth Meyers [62:22]: "We're going to shift our attitude into being honest..."
• Seth Meyers [73:04]: "One of the many reasons to watch Colbert's show is there's a real paternal instinct..."
• Seth Meyers [79:41]: "I really loved being here with you. You're wonderful..."
• Seth Meyers [60:00]: "Show up and do the work. That's the only part they're paying you to do..."

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the conversation between Dax Shepard and Seth Meyers, highlighting their discussions on career, family, and the intricacies of the late-night show industry.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome. Welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dax Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[Lily Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

We have Seth Meyers Today, a comedian, a television host, a writer, an actor, a producer, late night show, weeknights on NBC. And Peacock, Late night with Seth Meyers.

[Lily Padman]

You wanted to say it like that so bad.

[Dax Shepard]

What? No, that one. I heard it the same time you did Peacock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And his comedy special streaming now on Max. Seth Meyers dad Man Walking and two podcasts, Family Trips with the Myers Brothers and the Lonely island and Seth Meyers podcast. Please enjoy Seth Meyers. We are supported by Audible. Thanks to Audible for being the presenting sponsor of today's episode. We could all use an escape these days and the best way to do it, audible. With over 1 million titles in their selection, there's more to imagine with Audible. We are supported by JCPenney. You know that moment when someone compliments your outfit and asks where you got it?

[Lily Padman]

Oh, man. One of the best feelings.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And then you get to say, guess what? It's JCPenney. Yeah, JCPenney. It's so good, right?

[Lily Padman]

You just look so great that people assume you shelled out, but then you hit them with the fact that your fit is from JCPenney and they're like, wait.

[Dax Shepard]

Actually, JCPenney has got hidden gems for every age, everybody, and every budget. We actually just got some stuff from jcpenney.com. i am wearing right now a pair of Levi's 501s. And you know, that's my favorite pants. And they had the color I've been searching for. And I got a really kickass Levi's jacket too.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I got some Adidas white sneakers. They're solid white and everyone needs a pair of classic white sneakers. So I'm really excited to wear those. If you're already shopping at JCPenney, you know what's up. It's genuinely such an underrated spot for style savings and a solid reward system.

[Dax Shepard]

And if you're not shopping there yet, it's time you change that. Shopjcpenney.com yes, J.C. penney. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Each Apple product, like the iPhone 16, is thoughtfully designed by skilled designers. The titanium Apple Card is no different. It's laser etched, has no numbers, and earns you daily Cash on everything you buy, including 3% back on everything at Apple. Apply for Apple Card on your iPhone in minutes, subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and [e-mail]. he's an unchanger.

[Lily Padman]

He's an upchurcher.

[Dax Shepard]

You know how I know you're an early guest is when I go to look up my notes and they don't exist, because before it even occurred to me I should be saving.

[Seth Meyers]

I beat the notes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. You're prehistoric, I guess, is what it would be.

[Seth Meyers]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

No notes. I mean, I had notes, but I just didn't either save them on my computer when they were done.

[Seth Meyers]

Someone's remotely controlling everything.

[Dax Shepard]

They're just. Oh, they're. Yeah. But Rob controls absolutely everything, and they're just permanently.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. I felt like Rob had gone to, like, some mission control. I didn't realize he was just lurking around back there.

[Dax Shepard]

He's got a pretty cool mission control. Your podcast is still as lo fi as when I did it.

[Seth Meyers]

The one with my brother.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. But we do it remotely because we're never together. You're one of the only ones we've ever done with the person present.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Well, because we were early days. It was writer's strike and jamming it out.

[Dax Shepard]

Refresh my memory. Did I offer?

[Seth Meyers]

You did. It was very appreciated. Early days of our podcast, and we were hanging out.

[Dax Shepard]

We spent a glorious, by my account, summer together.

[Seth Meyers]

And I think it was about day four, and I had mentioned that we were starting a podcast, and then you said, can I do it? Which was a huge catch. But I would never have asked you on vacation to do my podcast, which was my hunch.

[Dax Shepard]

But are you ever in this situation? Because this has now happened to me. Not a ton of times, but it happened. Happened to me with you. Or it's like, I'm friends with you. I'm there. I know you, too, have to feed a content inferno. And so should I offer, or is that presumptuous and arrogant? And so I just did it, too, to Jake Johnson. We were hiking and he has a podcast. And I go, just so you know, I would always be on it. And he's like, oh, my God, I thank God you said that, because I would never ask you. I'm like, how many of these I do it, too? And I just wonder how many are floating out there that everyone would be happy to do it.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, the risk, of course, is you can't make a hard, fast rule, because every Day. There's a thousand more podcasts.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Do you do this one? I think my worst version of what you said is when you say to people, do you want a picture?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're just.

[Seth Meyers]

They're like, we're actually great.

[Dax Shepard]

But there's also layers of that because there might be someone that came up and they wanted to say hi to you.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you go, would you like a picture? And they're, oh, no, I'm cool. And you're like, well, this is confusing.

[Lily Padman]

They never say, no. They say, oh, yeah, now they're doing you a favor.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

And it's like, oh, you never should have asked that. So embarrassing.

[Seth Meyers]

And then they take it, and then I say, will you text it to me?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And then when you tag me, we make sure you tag me when you post. I want to be able to repost this. How about this? When's the last time you asked somebody for a picture? Because we just did it in New York.

[Seth Meyers]

I know, because I was just talking about. The only photo we took at the SNL 50th is Alexi, and I got a picture with Bonnie Raitt. She means a lot to both of us, and it was one of the most satisfying celebrity interactions I've had in my life.

[Dax Shepard]

Ooh. Okay, so say way more. We did learn on a previous interview with you that for your wedding, you had Brad Paisley, which, again, that might be unexpected. So this is consistent with the other unexpected thing is what I'm trying to say.

[Seth Meyers]

So Bonnie Raitt just happens to be that overlap. Brad Paisley, who I'm a fan of now, came entirely from Alexi and her taste. I was not sort of plugged into country music, especially that more modern country now. Great appreciation for it. But Bonnie Raitt was a big deal in my house growing up and a big deal in Alexi's house growing up. So we both really loved Bunny Raitt. She performed at the Radio City concert, was great. This was the after party of the Sunday night proper show. And I would never ask for a picture with anybody. But then I saw Bonnie Raitt. Alexi and I basically decided, let's go say hi to Bonnie Raitt.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And this really wonderful thing happened, which is she had watched Lobby Baby, which is the special about Alexa giving birth in lobby. And Bonnie wanted to talk to Alexi more than she wanted to talk to me. And then because it was all so lovely, we asked if we could get a picture with her as opposed to wanting a picture because it's who they were. It was more like, can I get a picture to remember this interaction? Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Who have you asked?

[Dax Shepard]

Ours was, we were walking down the street in New York a month ago. We saw real life Rainbow Brite. She was like 80.

[Seth Meyers]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And she was dressed 100%. Do you see that? I posted a picture.

[Lily Padman]

I didn't see it.

[Dax Shepard]

I was like, hun, look at real life Rainbow bright. And then we just kind of stopped and we were looking at her and Kristen was like, oh my God, I love her. And I go, I'm gonna ask if she'll take a picture with you. And then so I did. And she was like, okay. She didn't know who either of us were and she didn't understand why someone wanted her pict know who Rainbow Bright was.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, so this was just a person she was genuinely about?

[Dax Shepard]

You thought it was a performer?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. In my head I knew that Rainbow Bright was a toy and then a cartoon, but I wondered if it was a liveaction show as well.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, it is a liveaction person that lives on Central park south but is.

[Seth Meyers]

Unaware of her rainbow brightness identity.

[Dax Shepard]

And I got her email. Now we're in correspondence.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, the way you described it would be if you saw somebody dressed like Batman who didn't know they were Batman.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

You're like, oh my God, Batman. And they're like, I don't know who that is, but want a picture.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. And what's the marginal line between you're insane if you don't know you look like this person versus you could not know you look like Rainbow Bright.

[Lily Padman]

But also when it's offensive to say, like, hey, you look like, I'm not gonna say Shrek.

[Seth Meyers]

How did you bring up the rainbow Bright of it to her?

[Dax Shepard]

I said, you look just like Rainbow Bright. Do you know Rainbow Bright? You know, I think that's always my preferred approach. Like, let's get directly into it.

[Seth Meyers]

It was great.

[Dax Shepard]

She was lovely and turned out to be a singer. It was all serendipity.

[Lily Padman]

Did you get us a new listene? I mean, we're always trying to get new guests.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we're trying to hit the streets.

[Seth Meyers]

It's funny, as much as Dax was like, I offered to be a guest on your podcast. You also go up to people all the time, unprompted, and say, I'd love for you to be a listener.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I say, and I don't know if you have a podcast, but I'd love to be a guest.

[Seth Meyers]

Absent of that, I would love for you to listen to mine.

[Dax Shepard]

But, yeah, I think people could underestimate how much nuance there is. I hope you'll take this as not a burn, but you and I have a similar status, which is Red Pitt doesn't have to worry about whether the person knows who he is or not. I think the rung we're at can be there's a little more to interpretation.

[Seth Meyers]

I don't know if this happens to you. I think people, because especially they know us the most as us, that sometimes they think we might be a different person they're also comfortable with. A lot of times people think maybe they grew up with me and then they realize, oh, no, you're this other thing.

[Dax Shepard]

I get that for sure. Your first thought is like, oh, I must have worked with this guy at Subway or something in high school.

[Seth Meyers]

Embarrassing one. Just to make clear that I'm also capable of this mistake. I once met the guy who played Meadow Soprano's college boyfriend. He's like, we went to college together, right? He was like, no, we didn't. And I'm like, I'm sure we did. And then it was very awkward. And then years later, I was rewatching the Spanish with Alexi and saw all his scenes were in a dorm room. And I'm like, son of a gun.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Also fully 12 years younger than me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. Oops. But, yeah, he should have said, you do know me as a college student, but you know me as a college student.

[Seth Meyers]

I can explain.

[Lily Padman]

I don't know if that's on him 100%.

[Seth Meyers]

I'm not blaming him.

[Lily Padman]

I think he could just be like.

[Seth Meyers]

Nope, I'm 100% blaming myself. I'm just saying that were this to still be happening to him, I would appreciate if he offered this path out.

[Dax Shepard]

Glad we've stumbled upon this topic because I repeat one of your stories pretty regularly. You have one of my very favorite stories about celebrity, and it's about when you were in Israel.

[Seth Meyers]

Okay. Yeah. It's really good.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Would you please tell Monica we were.

[Seth Meyers]

In Israel and I had never been. We were going for my wife's cousin's wedding. Through connections, we got asked if we would like to have coffee with Shimon Perez, rest in peace, who was the president of Israel at the time. And we said, oh, my God, of course. We would love to do that.

[Dax Shepard]

Once again already. This is such an interesting proposition. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

A fascinating proposition.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It's one of those things where I knew Shimon Perez is a name I would be able to fill out in a crossword. But don't know much. And so I was like, you know what? Morning of. Let's read his Wikipedia page for the purposes of being informed, being a good guest. And so we read it, and we felt pretty well prepared. And then we had this very lovely coffee. I mean, a deeply thoughtful and interesting person to talk to. And I'm very lucky we had that opportunity. And then at the very end, he said, is there anything I can show you? Anything you'd want to ask? And I had read that he had won a Nobel Peace Prize. And so I said, I would love to see your Nobel Peace Prize. And he's like, oh, my God. It's right behind my desk. And he had a computer on his desk. When we walked behind his desk, my Wikipedia page was on his computer.

[Lily Padman]

No, that's amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, it's truly.

[Lily Padman]

God. We're just monkeys out here.

[Seth Meyers]

And then watching his very old head of state sort of close the browser.

[Dax Shepard]

Try to organically, casually close.

[Lily Padman]

Wow, that's great.

[Dax Shepard]

What I was watching today was you telling a story about being on finding your roots. And I was so relieved to hear that we have the same issue with being a guest on the show, which was we interviewed him, and then he invited me in the interview, and of course, I had to say yes.

[Lily Padman]

He was an incredible guest.

[Dax Shepard]

He's incredible, incredible person. Skip Gates. What a guy. But I am both not interested in my heritage at all. And I hate feeling like I have to be excited. I hate the feeling of people watching you unwrap a Christmas present. It's, like, top of my list of things.

[Seth Meyers]

It was supposed to be a gift that was bestowed upon me, and yet I was doing theater.

[Lily Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God.

[Lily Padman]

Did you feel like you had to cry?

[Seth Meyers]

I felt like he wanted that. By the way, I knew a couple of things going in. One, I don't think my life is shocking. I think you would have known a little bit. And two, even if it was, it wasn't gonna blow me away.

[Lily Padman]

Right, right, right.

[Seth Meyers]

The joke in my special is that they trace back a signature in a town ledger. He's like, how does that make you feel that we traced back one of your ancestors to the year 1695? How does that make you feel? And all I could think was, I mean, I knew I came from people.

[Lily Padman]

Right, Right.

[Dax Shepard]

I assume there's an uninterrupted. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

He was talking like. It was like, and she was a mermaid. You know, like, your great, great grandmother was from the sea.

[Dax Shepard]

And one of the things I already worry about myself is Like, I'm not sentimental enough, so I'm already worried that I'm not emotional enough as I'm supposed to be.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so, yes, none of it's moving me.

[Seth Meyers]

I find myself to be a very emotional person, but only for the people that have impacted my life.

[Dax Shepard]

That's better said. Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Maybe there's a piece missing. I have a cousin who is really into the lineage of our family and always is finding cool old articles and sending them. And one of the things about finding your roots. One of my great great grandfathers started a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and then we go to Pittsburgh once a year to see a Steelers game. And that's our connection to it. And it's amazing. It's. My parents and my brother and I, we go every year, and I was like, we should drive by. You know, I think we all had the same thing, which is like, well, there it is. Yeah. Yeah. Looks like it did on the map.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Right. So this is what I want to know from you, if this is the same, which is you could tell me. My great, great, great, great grandfather invented something spectacular.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I won't feel any ownership over that accomplishment. I don't think by any stretch I'm associated with that.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, the stuff that gave me deep joy is all the criminal stuff in my family, because in a weird way, that's something to be proud of. Wow. Look at these. Just once remove your uncles or all murderers and you're not. Oh, there's like an accomplishment in that, to find out someone was spectacular. I don't know the joy in that. It would depress me.

[Seth Meyers]

That's very interesting. A fascinating show would be able to show them what we've accomplished. You know what I mean?

[Dax Shepard]

Like, in 300 years.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Your great, great, great, great, great grandson is on this box.

[Seth Meyers]

Some, like, Lithuanian tin peddler.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Get out of here.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. Pride works that way. It doesn't really work up.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. But then another incredible moment happened, and you're finding the roots where it was like, what if I told you how did he set it up about show business?

[Seth Meyers]

You know, from doing it big book in front of you, he tees it up and then you.

[Dax Shepard]

It's very dramatic. It's very structured.

[Seth Meyers]

And you also see the camera and.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, now's the time. Yeah, that's right.

[Seth Meyers]

Wants you to pop. And by the way, I wasn't first season, so I know now that the things that go viral are like, yeah. Someone really. And by the way, authentic.

[Lily Padman]

Are you a people pleaser in general?

[Seth Meyers]

Oh my God, 100%.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Seth Meyers]

So you're so. I'm like, you want to do a.

[Lily Padman]

Good job, you gotta deliver.

[Seth Meyers]

And he says, you're a performer. And I said, I'm a performer. He goes, do you know anyone else in your family tree who is a performer? I go, no, not one person. And he said, well, why don't you turn the next page? Because I think what you're going to see is pretty cool. So I turn the page and it's an obituary about, I believe, my great grandfather who committed suicide.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, pretty cool.

[Seth Meyers]

And I sort of read that. And he says, what does it say? And I say, there's an article about my great grandmother that committed suicide. And then Skip Gates, to his credit, says, I apologize, that's a mistake. We're going to edit that out.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, oh, oh.

[Seth Meyers]

And then he said, turn another page for me. I turn another page and it was that my grandfather had been in a school play. And I go, oh, my grandmother was in school play. And he was like, pretty cool, right? And I was like, well.

[Dax Shepard]

That'S cool as a suicide. I just found out of my head.

[Seth Meyers]

It'll be hard for me also.

[Lily Padman]

I think I would feel then like, oh, yeah, my family's boring. If the big thing is that my grandpa was in a school play. Should you air this? There's not a lot here.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, exactly. A lot of people in school plays.

[Dax Shepard]

This is another moment where this is something you learn over time, I think is you also then have to remember who the audience of the thing is. I just did. Especially if your bar was set for 13 years on Saturday Night Live, you know, it is a success, you know what the laughter level is. And then you go into a situation like that and you have to remind yourself, the people that are watching the show, they want it fucking bone dry.

[Seth Meyers]

The star is the dead ancestor.

[Dax Shepard]

The information, you gotta adjust what you're judging this performance.

[Seth Meyers]

The other thing, we have this old picture in our house. It was something my mom's family always bragged about, which is some great, great, great. His name's Sir Charles Weudham. And I only know cause it's on the print. It's like a lithograph. Was the Lord Mayor of London, whatever that job is. So my mom's mom's side of the family was the braggy. Like, we come from good stock. And so I gave a heads up to the Roots people. I'm like, just FYI, there's a little bit of gold here for you. Yeah, you gotta jam and you have that sort of four branches. And they chose to follow my dad's dad, who are Lithuanian, like, get out of dodge in the 1850s, chased out by Cossacks. I could tell just my mom was like, what?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

By the way, as we're talking about how it's not for us, I'm so impressed with the process.

[Dax Shepard]

It's mind blowing. The show's incredible and people love it. And I'm sure people have come up to you to talk to you about your finding your roots. And that started to happen to me. And it's the very specific type that watch the show.

[Seth Meyers]

A genie I wish I could put back in the bottle is letting them swab my DNA, which is now in some database because I never cared about that thing. The like 23andMe. But they do that for you?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, there's several different ones.

[Seth Meyers]

Somebody's going to buy that data. I'm like, son of a.

[Lily Padman]

You're also asking for some random brothers and sisters to reach out.

[Seth Meyers]

Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, I know some people that's happen.

[Dax Shepard]

Just hit me up to say that a guy sent him an email and sent me the email. It was like a seventh cousin situation again. He's like, I don't know how to react. Am I supposed to not even rekindle Kindle?

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Lily Padman]

What would you do if he reached out and he was like, I really do need to tell you this. Your dad's, or in your case, your mom's not your mom. I don't know which parent you're closer to. What would it do?

[Seth Meyers]

I like that you want to know which one I'm closer to. Who would you be most disappointed if it wasn't your.

[Dax Shepard]

In public? You got to pick your mom or your dad.

[Lily Padman]

His dad's deceased, so we can say his mom.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

But what would you do? You'd be devastated because your identity is kind of wrapped up in her.

[Dax Shepard]

Really? I think it's more in my dad. Similar. If I found out my mom wasn't my mom, I'd be like, I guess it makes sense. We don't look much alike. And I don't care because she's still the love of my life.

[Lily Padman]

Right, right.

[Dax Shepard]

Whereas my dad would be like, bullshit, we're carbon copies. What are you talking about?

[Seth Meyers]

I've got enough of each parent that I would call bullshit right away. Some real genetic markers.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I'm going to hit you with a bunch of random questions.

[Seth Meyers]

Great. Love it.

[Dax Shepard]

One is, I was watching you on Colbert I do want to know about the difference between being a guest once you've had a show for so long, and then really specifically, do you have a side of your face?

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, yeah, I want this.

[Dax Shepard]

You want to be the host.

[Seth Meyers]

But also, like, this side of my face is the better side.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right, right, right, right. So on your show, you're perfect. We're always seeing this.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. This is what you want.

[Dax Shepard]

So I have a side too. It's this side.

[Seth Meyers]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And so I should be there. Once we went to video, all hosts are all on the right side of frame, but I was like, tough shit. I need this side of my face.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So when you're on a talk show, does it cross your mind? Oh, boy, I have the wrong side of my face on as a guest.

[Seth Meyers]

I am thinking about that. I'm gonna do Kimmel tonight, and I've already got some real wrong face vibes.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm being sincere, though. Does that cross your mind so much?

[Seth Meyers]

Crosses my mind about being a guest on a show. Thinking about the lower half of my body. The sanctuary of a desk is no small thing. It grounds me.

[Dax Shepard]

You're half hidden.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, half hidden.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, that's interesting. I've never really thought about that.

[Dax Shepard]

It's home. When you're playing hide and seek, I.

[Seth Meyers]

Feel like a centaur, but desk instead of horse.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

You know what I mean? A grander version of myself.

[Dax Shepard]

And you know what's funny is that would have not occurred to any of us in the audience, but when you said it, Colbert immediately was like, yeah. Aren't you afraid your socks gonna have a gap?

[Seth Meyers]

My dad was the one who said, I remember when I was a guest on Conan the very first time, he's like, there's one leg you cross and you can see the bottom of your shoe.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Seth Meyers]

So I think about that all the time.

[Dax Shepard]

And your dad came at you with that. That tells me a lot about that relationship.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, it's fantastic.

[Dax Shepard]

A, you're amenable to his advice, right?

[Seth Meyers]

Would not matter if I wasn't.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Seth Meyers]

No matter what.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I probably learned to be amenable.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. But are you one that can take direction?

[Seth Meyers]

Well, I can certainly take one like that. It's not taste based. It was just, FYI, objective.

[Dax Shepard]

But you weren't triggered at all, like, hey, I'm in show business, you're not.

[Seth Meyers]

We had to work through some stuff early on. I remember early SNL when things weren't going great. One of the reason I love comedy is my dad. He didn't just come to comedy because I got interested in it. And I would say the other way around, but maybe my second year of snl, which is probably the roughest one because I had a decent first year, and then it turned out, like, no momentum. And sometimes that happens.

[Lily Padman]

You mean just you weren't getting stuck on.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. And I thought the era was up. It isn't necessarily. You still have to do the work. We were walking. He said something along the lines of, like, you know, I noticed things like Brian Fellows Safari Planet look. Those really get some traction. You should try to come up with something like that. It's the only time, I think I was ever walking with my dad where I stopped walking.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And I said, I need to say something, which is, I right now, more than anything, need you to be super supportive. And he, by the way, totally got it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

You also handle that well. That's a good thing. Like, I need this. Not, like, hey, you don't have the right to tell me that. I think that's how I would have thought.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, it was also that weird thing because my dad is incredibly warm and affectionate and all these things, but he also pushes his kids to be what he thinks the best version of themselves can be. And then one of the things I said is, hey, he's not my dad or anything, but I just want you to know Lorne Michaels is on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

As far as, like, you don't have to worry that no one's pushing your son right now.

[Lily Padman]

I'm getting challenged.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes. I'm getting challenged. And I've never been more acutely aware of how important working hard is, because that was my dad's fear about me, was being a little lazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Did he have any grounds for that opinion?

[Seth Meyers]

He was very lazy in high school.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Lily Padman]

Really?

[Seth Meyers]

Because my dad would, like, yell when we misbehave. Anytime we lied to him or stayed out too late, he was very much like, don't cross him. And he was a real screamer. But there was a time, I think, like, halfway through my junior year of high school where I just remember exactly where we're standing in our driveway. I don't even know why we were outside. I never remember us talking outside where he was a different kind of angry. There was, like, a deep sadness to it. It wasn't just rage. He was just so disappointed.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, ye.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It was a real turning point.

[Dax Shepard]

Was it a moment of Apex laziness?

[Seth Meyers]

It was the time where it was, like, almost too late to, like, get it right before College?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. You're running out of time.

[Lily Padman]

And was it a grades thing where you'd like smoking pot?

[Seth Meyers]

No, it wasn't. It was just grades. And it was. Every teacher I ever had was like, he's not applying himself. That was the bummer of teachers being like, he's smart and he's talented and he's lazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And so my dad was just like, what?

[Lily Padman]

What do we do? I also think it's maybe more common if the bar is set very high. Like, you have to reach this. You're capable of reaching this and this. It's like, well, may. I don't want to fucking do that.

[Seth Meyers]

My dad also was like a scholarship kid to Northwestern was where I eventually went as well. He was like, ground up. And then that thing of, like, you then provide your kids a better life than you had, and you just lay out the red carpet for them, and literally all they have to do is just apply themselves to the talent with which they were born.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It certainly hasn't happened yet, but now that I have kids, I know that that would be the most frustrating thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Is like, are they gonna launch or not?

[Seth Meyers]

It didn't help that he thought I wasn't applying myself. And every teacher I ever talked to was like, yeah, no, you got it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Clearly, what you've demonstrated is you have great industriousness. What was the fuel you figured out.

[Seth Meyers]

How to shovel one is like, do with the thing you were most interested in doing. I mean, that is the hardest part about school. Like, even now, science and math have no appeal to me. But there is a big part of being good in school.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Applying yourself to that which does not interest you is, of course, the hardest thing.

[Dax Shepard]

If you're on a first date and someone asks you why you're so driven, what is your explanation?

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, my first date. If someone said, why are you so driven?

[Dax Shepard]

They've noticed you're really driven.

[Seth Meyers]

It always looked like the brass ring.

[Dax Shepard]

It just was appealing.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. I feel like you. Maybe there were other things that presented themselves to you as what you could do for a living. I really didn't have anything else that I ever wanted to do, even a little bit. So then you're like, okay. It's interesting, too. Before I got snl, I was doing improv once a week, but I wasn't, like, spending the rest of my week obsessing on it. Yeah. And so it was, weirdly, a little lazy. And then I was lucky enough to get hired by a few places, and once I actually had A job where you knew how to apply yourself. Like, then it all made sense to me. But it's hard being driven before you actually have a job in showbiz and the people who are good at it. I've always been very impressed by trying.

[Dax Shepard]

To apply yourself to something that doesn't really. You need an opportunity. That is hard. That's interesting because I would have pegged you as more. You had done great the whole ride.

[Seth Meyers]

The thing that turned everything around for me in college because I was a radio, tv, film major immediately when I did early film stuff, I was taken with, this is too hard. This is way more science than art. Learning how cameras work. And I was so bored.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you are with your major.

[Seth Meyers]

Bummed out. But we had an improv troupe at Northwestern and I saw that and I was like, oh, now, here we go.

[Dax Shepard]

The meows.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Well done. Nice pull. Meows. And then I auditioned for that. Freshman, sophomore, junior year. Did not get in. But that was the drive. That was the thing. And then thanks to a friend of mine in college, this guy named Pete Gross, he was the one who said, you know, we should start going in Chicago and taking classes. Why are we just waiting for this audition once a year and thinking that we're just gonna be better because we wanna be better without any. Yeah. Without actually getting any work. It was only comedy and writing that I ever tried to get better at anything.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, but you did graduate.

[Seth Meyers]

I did.

[Dax Shepard]

Then you had that most envious two years in Amsterdam. God, I'm so jealous.

[Seth Meyers]

Was the best. I'm going back in a couple weeks.

[Dax Shepard]

You go once a year?

[Seth Meyers]

Depends. This time it's the founders who are a married couple, are renewing their vows. And so it's a reason for us.

[Dax Shepard]

You guys always think of a reason. There's always 16 and a half year anniversary.

[Seth Meyers]

Last year was the 30th, and I think maybe I hadn't been back since the 25th, so there was a gap. But I did go last summer.

[Dax Shepard]

Is everyone going to this wedding?

[Seth Meyers]

I'm my oldest son this time, just the two of us. We've never taken a trip together.

[Dax Shepard]

Fun.

[Lily Padman]

Are you nervous or excited?

[Seth Meyers]

Here's the part I'm nervous about. Love my oldest so much. He's very excited.

[Dax Shepard]

How old?

[Seth Meyers]

Nine. Our friend Ike Barinholtz.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. He's bringing his kids and he's got girls.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. They've traded some FaceTime videos, so they're very excited to meet. My son is so clumsy.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Seth Meyers]

All my fear is, am I going to let him rent A bike. Because biking in Amsterdam is how everybody gets around. But they bike the way people drive.

[Dax Shepard]

Cars on the Autobahn.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. It's not a promenade. It's not a afternoon app.

[Dax Shepard]

You got to know what you're doing.

[Lily Padman]

It's a free for all.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. I also am very worried about the fear I project, especially with my oldest. I feel like I did better with the next two.

[Dax Shepard]

But, you know, your first when you were little.

[Seth Meyers]

I know the biking will only work if I endow him with being good at it, but I have to, like, trick myself into thinking it's a real weird.

[Dax Shepard]

You have to be like, back on finding your roots. You're going to have to put in a performance that you think he can conquer this.

[Seth Meyers]

And then me, Ike's like, yeah, my kids are great on bikes.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm like.

[Seth Meyers]

Because I can't be like, you know what's cool? What everybody says you do in Amsterdam? Take an Uber. You've never Uber. That's really cool in Amsterdam.

[Dax Shepard]

Boats. Maybe do some more. Okay, so you're taking Ash. And now I don't want to out Ash or you, but he does have a pastoral life in the summer. Yeah, he's room to ride a bike.

[Seth Meyers]

He's ridden a bike. He's good. And by the way, Alexi, who is fearless, she comes from a different stock than I do, and so she bikes the kids to school every now and then in New York City.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, well, there you go. If he can ride New York City.

[Seth Meyers]

I'm just worried about other bikers.

[Dax Shepard]

Is it that the standard level of a biker in New York is people are anticipating incompetence?

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

And you need that.

[Seth Meyers]

This is a very astute observation.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. So your fear in Amsterdam is like, they're not going to anticipate any incompetence and he's going to ride right in the side of them.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

The other thing is, it might have changed. No one wears helmets in Amsterdam, and there's no way I'm letting them not wear a helmet. So maybe actually the helmet will be a good, you know, indicator.

[Lily Padman]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Would you do this? Because I have done this before, which is when you're in a foreign land and they yell at you, do you fake that you know that language? Because if you're like, my bad. I feel like that is adding to the negative impression of Americans. So I'll always say sort of like, yeah, like, I'll fake I'm a local who is run afoul.

[Lily Padman]

I have the opposite inclination. I just don't know what's going on? I don't belong here. I'm sorry.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm a stranger in a strange lane.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, probably the better way.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Because yours runs the risk of A, he didn't understand me. B, that's an impersonation of us.

[Lily Padman]

Americans are always trying to do impressions of others.

[Dax Shepard]

You just say, we, we, we.

[Seth Meyers]

It's changed. But when I lived in Amster, you would literally go to, like, a cab stand. There was a line of cabs, and if you got out of, like, a nightclub at, like, three in the morning, you'd just be in the line with all these drunk people, and it was crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

Sounds fun.

[Seth Meyers]

Anytime you got in a fight, if you spoke English, then you already lost to the group. Everybody around took the side of the local, and I remember once getting in a taxi, and then some drunk guy got in on the other side. So they had violated the line rule. My Dutch is terrible. But I just kept going, nay, nay, nay, which is no. I was like, n. And he was speaking to me in Dutch. And I just wouldn't come off like, nay, nay, nay, until that guy's like, what's a weird take? But I must be in the wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

I can't just chalk him up to being American because he's clearly.

[Lily Padman]

He's a horse.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he's one of us. He's a horse. Okay. So I was watching Dadman Walking yesterday, and I wanted to hash out some of these theories that I learned. First of all, it's a great standup special, and the New York Times said it best. It's very fun to see you play a side of yourself that's not the talk show host.

[Seth Meyers]

It's lovely and it's true. It's also a real version of me.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. They're all true.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

But just before we launch into that, what did you discover about being a talk show host where you're like, oh, I've got to adjust. There's a different demand on me.

[Seth Meyers]

There's different components of the show. I would say interviewing guests, you just learn the more you do it, how there's a million different kinds of guests. You try to, as quickly as possible, game out what they need from you. Some people just immediately start performing. They, like, look out, and you just realize you're good. I'll give you a few things. Other people get really close, and you realize, oh, they want to pretend like there's nobody here. And then the other thing I just allowed myself to do in that first chunk of the show where you're out There on your own is just kind of enjoy being the center of attention. When I started the show because so much we can update was sure joke jokes, but then you'd have somebody come out, one of your cast members and serve them. And I realized that's all well and good, but when you have your own show, you have to have your own show and you have to allow yourself to let yourself, your ego, enjoy. This is your time. You have to embrace it. I don't think people want to tune in and watch somebody who's like, not sure if they're the right person for the job.

[Dax Shepard]

No, that's not comforting.

[Lily Padman]

It's like a surgeon, he needs some narcissism.

[Seth Meyers]

You don't want to start to come in and be like, sorry, it's me.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I hope this goes well.

[Lily Padman]

I.

[Dax Shepard]

Everything else go to med school, but I've been having one of those mornings like I couldn't even make my coffee.

[Lily Padman]

All of us, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Two coffee cups. Cup. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. Let's take a minute to thank our presenting sponsor, Audible. With Audible, the leading audio entertainment app, it's easy to discover new stories and ideas while going about your day.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. And with over a million audiobooks, Audible originals and more, it's basically impossible to run out of things to listen to. Plus, there's just something about audio storytelling that hits a little difficult. Different.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it really does. Especially Audible originals that feature performances from celebrities and top voices. It's like watching a movie in your head. One on my list is Treasure Island.

[Lily Padman]

Aha.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is an Audible original drama. It's a timeless tale of pirates, lost treasure maps and mutiny. What more could you need?

[Lily Padman]

That sounds really fun. I'm more of a psychological thriller.

[Dax Shepard]

Girl, you're dark.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, I'm dark. And I. I'm broody. And I've been hearing all about the author, Freda McFadden, and I love that I can listen to her audiobooks on the Audible app when I'm commuting, taking my walks as you know, or just like doing laundry and chores.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, with Audible, you can find the genres you love and discover new ones. There's more to imagine when you listen. And to make it even better, Audible has a special offer for armchairs. Sign up for a free 30 day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.comdax that's audible.comdax we are supported by Wild Planet. Love canned seafood, but having a hard time finding a high quality and sustainable option. Wild Planet has Wild caught responsibly harvested tuna, sardines and more. It's seafood the way nature provided it, with less processing and more delicious nutrients. What's Wild Tastes better? Not only does Wild Planet taste good, it's good for you and the planet. You haven't had canned tuna like their albacore tuna, a solid tuna steak without any fillers, just cooked once in its own juices. It's an amazing source of clean protein with 33 grams in each can. And right now, Wild Planet is running a contest to help you go from your domesticated daily routine to the wildest version of yourself. You could win a one of a kind four day adventure sailing through the San Juan Islands, designed to help you reconnect with the wild. Learn more and [e-mail] Rewild no purchase necessary. Voidware prohibited. Open Illegal Residents of the 50 US states and DC ages 18 and older enter by August 1, 2025. See official [e-mail] Rewild for details and restrictions. Sponsors Wild Planet Foods Incorporated we are supported by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds of dollars on car insurance by checking Allstate First. Like, you know to check if your headphones are connected first before blasting your guilty pleasure playlist in public. Like you know to check that your coffee maker is running first before jumping in the shower and coming back to an empty pot and crushing disappointment. Like, you know to check you have your keys first before letting the door close behind you. That locksmith fee still hurts my soul. Checking first is smart, so check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate Savings varies, subject to terms, conditions and availability. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, IL we are supported by Quints. Oh, we love quints.

[Lily Padman]

We do love quints.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Lily Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

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[Lily Padman]

I got a friend a bunch of the Flit Polos. Yeah, they are so nice. And he was busting around Hawaii and he looked so cool. And then he sent me all these pictures.

[Dax Shepard]

He was just strutting.

[Lily Padman]

He was strutting.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Quint can make you strut the Best part, Quint gives you this premium quality at half the price of similar brands. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from quince. Go to quince.comdax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.comdax to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdax.

[Seth Meyers]

It'S the most fun part. Early on in the show, I was still in SNL brain where when it goes badly, it just felt like it counted. At SNL because you don't have another show for a week or maybe sometimes two weeks or maybe sometimes the whole summer. You just do these one day after the other. And so when a monologue joke bombs, I used to like live and die with it. And now the most fun is literally telling the audience like, I also know that bombed. FYI, you're not smarter than me. I was dumb today. But I want you to know I also am assessing this with you.

[Dax Shepard]

But in the standup routine, you get to show, I guess we would probably just label it maybe the pettier side of yourself that we all have. I think it's petty.

[Seth Meyers]

Being a parent is not like being a talk show host. Being a talk show host, you build the show towards the thing you're best at, whereas your kids are always growing on their own.

[Dax Shepard]

Everything you figured out is no longer useful the next day.

[Seth Meyers]

Virtually a hundred percent. And so it's really nice to one just sort of embrace being petty about the way they behave. And also just so much of my standup is about a lack of competence and embracing that for talk show host, you have to project competence. And then in standup there's a competence to being a good standup. But it's fun to talk about the things I'm bad at.

[Lily Padman]

You definitely don't have that Persona. Just as a person, you feel very put together. And it's nice to see some other sides.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, and it's one of the sides.

[Dax Shepard]

All right, so let's talk about swearing, because now I went the other route than you. I fully swear in front of my kids. Yeah, they are allowed to swear. Not with impunity, but when it's called for and they land it and it's in the house and not out at a restaurant. It's okay. I was looking for competence. And then also my defense of it is I just told the girls, like, hey, these are noises that come out of your mouth and you assign what they mean to you. And so for someone as smart as you, I would love to hear the counter argument.

[Seth Meyers]

I love that you think this plan came from me. The smart part of me was asking Alexi what our plan was.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Sometimes the kids will curse and she'll look at me again like they learned it from me. And I'm like, we walk them to school in New York City.

[Dax Shepard]

The world's out there.

[Seth Meyers]

Someone's on the phone saying, like, tell them to around and find out. And then the kids are like, what does that mean? Well, know for us it's the fear that they're going to take it to school Also, by the way, let's not underestimate girls and boys. Okay? I think with my daughter, probably trust her with it. Yeah. I'm going to tell you, his word don't say to school.

[Dax Shepard]

The boys, they're going to say it immediately. But also, isn't it already at school? There's no way you're introducing.

[Seth Meyers]

You just don't want him to stay in front of a teacher.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Lily Padman]

I would venture to say most people are like you.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, for sure they are.

[Lily Padman]

You're more an exception. And I will say it is jarring to hear it come out of a kid's mouth. There's something that's like, oh, my God, that doesn't seem right. And then you're like, I guess it's fine.

[Seth Meyers]

The bummer is not the word. I talk a little bit about the standup, but when they also steal your delivery. Because I will say I've got a bad habit. Alexi and I are having the most minor of disagreements. I'll take, like, Jesus Christ as I, like, walk out of the room. And like the other day, for real, I just heard Ash be like, Jesus. I'm like, all right, we gotta talk about.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, Jesus Christ. They pick up earliest.

[Seth Meyers]

It's so funny because I guess it's probably one we fall back on. And I don't even think I say it that much, but I think maybe when I had kids, I was like, this is the safe one. Your kids learn it. And weirdly, I'd rather have them say, fuck off. It just seems so world weary. Yeah, I'm biblically upset.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Years of it, too. It's more of a, like, I can't deal.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, like this again. When kids say not again, it is genuinely my favorite. My son once fell off his scooter and said, not again. And it made me laugh so hard because it's like the life I've lived, if you can call this a life.

[Dax Shepard]

My most memorable exchange with a human that I didn't know was not again. I was at a gas station in Rancho Cucamonga, driving home from Detroit, and I had a can of gas I kept in the trunk in case I ever ran out, because I did. And I drove cars for a living. So I'm at a gas station and I'm using a fucking gas to fill up a gallon of gas. It's not the safest setup. Car rolls in directly next to me on the other side of the gas pumps. And as he rolls on, there's smoke billowing out of the hood. He jumps out and he pops the hood. And when he pops the hood, it's flames like six feet tall. And he goes, fucking, not again. And he's like, your car's already been engulfed in flames before. And also, did you not learn in that first time don't drive directly to the gas station in pop your hood.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, it's really, again, from a guy.

[Dax Shepard]

Whose car's on fire at a gas station.

[Seth Meyers]

We were just in Albuquerque and I borrowed my mother in law's car. You know, my mother in law, I really apologize to her that I'm gonna tell the story, but I was like, hey, can I borrow your car? And she was like, yes. And I had to run an errand. And I'm driving on the highway in New Mexico and I'm stopped to get on an exit ramp, and a guy pulls up next to me goes, hey, man, your gas door is open and the cap's off and it was just like dangling. Oh, my God. I get the door open.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Seth Meyers]

Easy mistake the cap off as well. It's a real fucking Joanne kind of rush.

[Dax Shepard]

Were you in Harry Stone? What was going on here?

[Seth Meyers]

Just like a dank clank, clank, clank, clank, clank.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, now is a great time to do at least five minutes on your father in law.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

So when I got to be with you for that couple weeks in Martha's Vineyard, which was such a lovely, lovely, lovely couple weeks, I had the pleasure of meeting your father in law and falling deeply in love with him.

[Seth Meyers]

It happens.

[Dax Shepard]

He's such a stud, Tom.

[Seth Meyers]

He's unbelievable.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that good or bad? To have a father in law that's that radical. What are the pros and cons?

[Seth Meyers]

There's really no downside. I will say I bust on him all the time. And again, we were just in New Mexico. He can't drive for like three minutes without telling the kids about, like, the historical significance of Iraq. Everything's a Tour Axel, the seven year old. We were there at Christmas and we were driving. I was in the backseat with Axel and Axel's got glasses and he's just sort of like staring out the window and he looks tired. And Tom said, you know, I got another story. And he just went another one. And it was just so funny to have a seven year old be cognizant of. But then, you know, my brother in law to you as well, they took Ash and Axel and my niece Agnes and they took him for like 7 hours. Take him to national park and they come back and they are full of knowledge. Kids love getting history. The way Tom is dealing it, he's tireless for a man of his age. Except he takes like eight five minute naps a day.

[Dax Shepard]

Some of them while driving the kids.

[Seth Meyers]

Hopefully not. But a terrible unfair thing I do to him is because he will fall asleep anyway, anywhere, mouth open, including this last summer in a hot tub.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh sure, my dad pulled that.

[Seth Meyers]

Every time I catch him, I take a picture and I send it to the girls, Ariel and Alexi. And I write, sorry for your loss because he sleeps like a dead person.

[Dax Shepard]

He passes.

[Seth Meyers]

He passes. I'm so sorry. So sorry. You're finding out.

[Dax Shepard]

I gotta paint a physical picture of him. He is rugged, he's handsome, he loves riding motorcycles. He's an adventurer.

[Seth Meyers]

Looks like a Don Johnson type.

[Dax Shepard]

Don Johnson. He's down to three fingers, I think.

[Seth Meyers]

Think he has one hand, three fingers from a paint gun accident. Because he's a home builder, he injected like a toxic paint and amazing that he did not lose the entire arm.

[Dax Shepard]

This has not slowed him down at all. He is operating motorcycles and driving the boat. Almost again. In your face. Look what I'm still doing with this. He's a very impressive man. Totally self made. Built his own home in college.

[Seth Meyers]

Learned how to build adobe houses by himself. Incredibly warm human being, friend to all. Capable of having a falling out with him because he will just will. You know, we hit along incredibly well. It's so funny to me that Alexi could not have married a more different person. And I'm almost like, did you know that your dad was still going to be so in your life? You were like, I might try to go out and get a different thing. Yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I'm going to fill in the gaps.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Because both Tom and Toya, if I were capable of being emasculated by sort of handymen, I would be the most neutered.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

They'll come to my apartment with just like a punch list and a tool.

[Dax Shepard]

Belt and get going.

[Seth Meyers]

It's never even occurs to Alexi to ask what I would think about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, the highlight of the whole trip for me was totally put the car into a wall and it needed the tire changed and people didn't know how to proceed. And I got really involved and changed this tire on the side of the road and I felt like that just cemented Tom and I.

[Seth Meyers]

You spend two weeks with my in laws, there's going to be a crisis that Tolia brought about. I have a good Tolia story. Tolia is my brother in law, adopted from Russia when he was five, which again speaks to the kind my in laws are.

[Dax Shepard]

He told the story in the boat and I started crying.

[Seth Meyers]

It's incredible.

[Dax Shepard]

He learned Russian when he went to pick him up.

[Seth Meyers]

It was like Siberia. It wasn't like easy to get to.

[Lily Padman]

Russia and they just picked randomly.

[Seth Meyers]

They went to an agency in Albuquerque and so they had a picture of the kid. They knew who it was, but it's crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

And they already had two daughters. He had seen something on like 60 Minutes.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Just before that they have video.

[Seth Meyers]

It's the craziest thing because five is a kid. I did not comprehend what that means until you have your own kids. And when they're five, the amount of connection you have with MRT And Tolia just walked out of this orphanage in a parka because it was the middle of winter and this woman ran the orphanage. Just pats him on the back like three times and then he's just off with Tom.

[Dax Shepard]

And Tom learned how to say in Russia, hi, Tolia, I'm your papa. Oh, no.

[Seth Meyers]

It's really amazing.

[Lily Padman]

So sweet.

[Dax Shepard]

I was like, you, it's nuts. What a dude.

[Seth Meyers]

And he's a dude. He is as special an uncle as Tom is his grandfather. What I get from them is really special, but what my kids get from them is irreplaceable. Yeah, it's a very cool thing. But Toya is also super handsome and super jacked.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he's gorgeous, athletic, fearless, walks around.

[Seth Meyers]

The entire summer with a shirt off.

[Dax Shepard]

And generally no shoes too.

[Seth Meyers]

Generally no shoes.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

He picked me up once at the Martha's Vineyard airport and literally.

[Lily Padman]

He literally picked you up.

[Seth Meyers]

Every year on his birthday, we take a picture of him holding all four. Four of his nieces and nephews.

[Lily Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. He's a specimen.

[Seth Meyers]

So he picked me up and it's a tiny airport. Do you just pull up up front? I'm like getting my bags in the trunk and some People walk by, and I noticed that thing that, again, people, our level of fame sometimes can clock when we've been recognized.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right.

[Seth Meyers]

And so I see this woman lean over to this guy, but as they pass, I hear her say, that's the guy who never wears a shirt.

[Dax Shepard]

He's famous on the island.

[Seth Meyers]

Is, like, island wide. And it's like, you know who we finally saw? Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

The shirtless guy. He is gorgeous.

[Seth Meyers]

He's gorgeous.

[Dax Shepard]

I got to see him cook pizza. And he's just covered head to toe in flour, you know, no shirt.

[Seth Meyers]

The way he's an uncle is transferable to even those with whom he has no blood connection.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

He's got an uncle vibe. If he didn't have nieces and nephews, you'd still think, like, this guy should be an uncle.

[Dax Shepard]

One day, within five minutes, my kids were riding around in, like, a Gatorade with him, looking at an orchard or something. He's special. The whole. The whole thing is really.

[Seth Meyers]

It's a very exceptional group of people.

[Dax Shepard]

What's the downside of that? Well, let's just say that you're a very confident guy and it's working for you. But you can see where you'd get gobbled up in that scenario. Right.

[Seth Meyers]

You can't penetrate the vibe. They've established you've joined their family. Yes. Whatever I brought is, like, not taking.

[Dax Shepard]

They're not interested. They thought that they're already. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It hasn't been like, and then we'll breed. And then it'll be happening, you know, like, it's not. It's very much their world. But I've come to peace with it. And one might say my family could be better at talking about our feelings.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

Whereas I think their family could be a little bit better at shutting the up. Sometimes, like, some feelings go unstated.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

But because they are always talking about any slight, it all passes quickly with our family. I'm sure there's something like I did 15 years ago that my mom's still holding on to.

[Dax Shepard]

There's slivers.

[Seth Meyers]

Our family's, like, really tight. But our tightness, a lot of it has been, you know what the bad stuff. Let's just ignore it. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I do remember one time. This is a few summers ago, but I made the mistake saying, I don't know. It feels like sometimes the environment here is a little toxic. And Alexa was like, what do you mean by toxic? Give me one example. And I was like, well, three times in the past week, someone has pulled out of the driveway so fast that gravel has hit the side of the house.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right. You live directly next do to your father in law.

[Seth Meyers]

That's a recent development because we were basically living in their house. He like wakes up and just like comes over the hill and it's great.

[Dax Shepard]

He's living my dream life. But it wouldn't be my dream life for a father in law.

[Seth Meyers]

You know what? If you'd asked me before I had a father in law, does that sound like the dream I was saying? But he's the one you want to.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he's pretty great.

[Seth Meyers]

As we were getting a house next door to my in laws, which by the way was predestined. As soon as I met Alexi, we both knew what we were getting from the other one's families. And I think it's really one of the things we most appreciated about the other one of like, okay, good family members matters. I was saying I want to get one of those invisible fences for dogs. Get Tom and Joanne tagged.

[Dax Shepard]

So you at least get a heads up.

[Seth Meyers]

Just a little zap or just something.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Are you free to walk out in your backyard naked ever? You would never step outside nude.

[Seth Meyers]

Even if I lived alone on an island, I might throw something around.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. All right.

[Lily Padman]

Do your parents ever interact with them?

[Seth Meyers]

They do. Not a lot. But they'll come and visit in the summer and spend time together. Together. I think both of them appreciate how it worked out ultimately what you could end up with for in laws. None of them have any complaints.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's great. Okay. Now this was another fun thing that I thought we could hash out a little bit, which is you don't do any yelling at home.

[Seth Meyers]

I try not to. I'm not going to go on record.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, you do minimal yelling.

[Seth Meyers]

Try to.

[Dax Shepard]

I too do minimal yelling. But of course we didn't come from that.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And so what's fun for you or not fun is when your dad's around, they still get a taste of the yelling.

[Seth Meyers]

It's so funny because even. Even when I yell, it's not the way my dad yells. I yell every now and then, but not 10 out of 10. The way my dad yells. Yes, I yell like with the parking brake on. Whereas my dad.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's go.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. And a couple summers ago, and it was my brother too, but the boys were on a rock and Ash pushed Axel off the rock and it was big. And Axel hit the ground and immediately started crying. And I think it was like five, maybe four. So a little kid. By the way, when I watched it happen. I knew in advance what my dad reaction would be.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right, you probably even skipped all your thoughts about your kid and go straight to what's coming next.

[Seth Meyers]

Immediately I was like, however bad he's hurt, what's about to happen is worse. It was some version like, don't you push her brother. Yes, yes. And immediately that was the headline. You know, like all of a sudden like B12 was like a little small article that was like, son pushes other son off. Nobody cared about that because nobody had ever seen. And my brother too was like the.

[Dax Shepard]

Whole family system was.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, but it was like looking out for Axel and Ash was just shell shocked. And everybo was shell shocked. I remember later, Alexi was like, it's a lot to get yelled at like that. I'm like, I'm sorry, who do you think you're talking to? Yeah, yeah, I lived with him. If anything, I'm living proof that you turn out fine.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Seth Meyers]

The best part was Ash was like, also, I didn't even push him. He jumped. And I'm like, don't lie to me. And then I swear to God, like six months later, what came up? And he goes, you know, I didn't even push him. He jumped and like, he didn't jump. And Axel was like doing something else. He goes, no, I jumped. And I'm like, no.

[Lily Padman]

Oh.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

So wait, wait. Do you think though, the older brother infected the young brother with the story or you think he jumped?

[Seth Meyers]

Axel's like, oh, yeah, I jumped.

[Lily Padman]

Does your brother have kids? No, he's being a protective.

[Dax Shepard]

He's a vegan.

[Seth Meyers]

Everybody's being protective. He doesn't have kids.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, that's why he's vegan.

[Lily Padman]

That really came out of me.

[Seth Meyers]

You can't have kids because they're me.

[Dax Shepard]

In a very funny bit is how people imagining how they would ever deal with a family member transitioning to another gender and how he said he would take that 10 times over. A family member who's vegan, just like for the inconvenience. Single meal. Is there butter in this? Is there butter in this?

[Seth Meyers]

What's in this?

[Lily Padman]

My God. That gets kind of complicated because I feel like when you don't have kids, but you're around a lot of kids and you care about the kids.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

There's a fine line about what you can say and do. It's tricky.

[Seth Meyers]

My brother and my parents probably both think we're not great at giving our kids consequences.

[Dax Shepard]

That's their judgment of you.

[Seth Meyers]

My projection is they think the kids kind of just like, run roughshod.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure, sure, sure. Okay. Now, what about this, though, as an argument? So that stuff started happening for us. Of course, there's different family members that do different things. And you hear later in bed, so and so told me this, and you're like, yeah, that's a weird story to have told. But I ended up coming to peace with it by going, yeah, what a blessing. Thank God they're around people that are doing things that they don't approve of, so they can see that that's an option. I think it's a blessing when dad comes into town and screams at the kid.

[Seth Meyers]

I do, too.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, good.

[Seth Meyers]

I also just like when my kids see. I don't know if they're quite old enough yet, but, like, oh, that was Dad's dad.

[Dax Shepard]

I really relate to this. You try to keep a running list of, like, three grievances against your family at all times.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Mostly about my kids.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, here's my question to you because I am currently evaluating this. My kids are 10 and 12. We've reached an age. Age where at least potentially, someone's parent listens to the show, a classmate's parent listens to the show. And I think I'm very good at always saying what I tell about them and what I don't, and they seem very on board. But I heard Stern say he regrets talking about his daughters, that they came to resent that. Are you playing that game in your head at all?

[Seth Meyers]

I certainly am. When I go and do stand up, I give myself the freedom to say whatever I want in front of one room of people. But when it comes to time to, like, actually film it, I put a lot of thought into the fact that it's the permanent record and what the kids are going to see and how it's going to affect them. The first special was called Lobby Baby, which is obviously about Axel being born in the lobby. That has been a real positive because people will come up when I'm with the boys and they're like, which one's Lobby Baby? It's like, a fun thing, for sure. At the same time, like, am I putting some level of celebrity on him? I know these are tricky time. It's like, this is who we are. This is the family business.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right. There's some upsides, but the most important.

[Seth Meyers]

Thing which we're both doing is, like, I want to make sure they know I put a ton of thought into it, and I'll obviously own whatever piece of It I got wrong. And Alexi is very helpful with that too, because, you know, we talk about both what's allowed with kids and what's allowed with her.

[Dax Shepard]

When I'm anticipating a positive outcome, the speech I have for them is like, I chose to let you know all I do is think about you and all I do is talk about you in my positive forecasts. They'll understand, oh, all I did is think about you and talk about you. But that's likely not how they feel.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, the thing I will genuinely be able to say is I had this show that was on TV every day, was talking about the news and sometimes I talked about this news. It made me sad and it made me stressed out talking about you guys. I was never anything but happy. And I think that people, when they saw me talking about you, even when I was talking about how you drove me crazy, they knew I loved you because I would never have done it otherwise. I feel like I'm saying this to a person who's screaming at me, going to the future. That is the truth of it. I'm a stand up that talks about my family. And it is because, like, yeah, that's just what I want to talk about.

[Dax Shepard]

That's all you got left. You could be talking about your work or your family.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. I think there's incredible standups who have this ability to like, process the world at large. I've never kind of had that skill. And it wasn't until if you talk about the idea of like filming a special as does it feel special. It was only until I was talking about them that it felt special to me. Right. As opposed to like, here's my joke about climate change. I was never good at constructing that in a way that made it feel better or more special than anybody else's.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, I wrote down one of your things you said about why even do stand up, which I can relate to greatly. You said, I do these specials to prove a thing that nobody has ever asked me to prove, that I can also do stand up. Because I don't think people see me as one interview, lots of people where they'll say they thought I couldn't do blank. And the more I've heard that story, and I'm guilty of it myself, I do wonder, was there really a person that said that? And I think there's almost never a person that says this thing that we think we're motivated by.

[Lily Padman]

Well, you were rejected. You mentioned it shouldn't matter. They can make the trajectory of your life take a full rider Left, left turn.

[Seth Meyers]

It'd be so lovely if you're like, I want to do it because I love doing it. Which is also the truth. Yeah, but it is so funny how many times where the amount you want to go, happy now? And everybody's like, who are you talking to?

[Lily Padman]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Or like, see? And they're like, I'm sorry, just real quick, who is that too?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. That's the phenomena I've recently feel like I've stumbled upon is like, people really do think the shadow are real people.

[Seth Meyers]

Is it just. Do you think because we don't want to admit it's us that our self doubt, we don't want to think it comes from us. So we're like, you know who made me do it?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I think it's delusion. You're afraid people think that and you're thinking about so, so much that you're afraid people think that, that all of a sudden they just think that you cross some bridge. And now in your mind, that's what they all thought about me. But you never talked to anyone. You just assume they thought that about you.

[Seth Meyers]

It feels good to be good at things. That should just be enough. It's like, why do you do stand up? It's like, I like getting better at it. And then it feels good to be good.

[Dax Shepard]

As much as I hate people talking about the power of story, I also think it's incredible, the power of story. And I think you need to tell this story or the adversaries, this group of people who are doubting you. They don't dream exists. But it's almost like you can't even think in a way other than that. Architecture.

[Seth Meyers]

I think too, when I look at people I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by in an incredibly competitive environment. Right. Like my years at snl, I couldn't have been there at a better time. Not just for talent, but the quality of the people.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

So it is weird when you actually step back and you realize, oh, actually I think everyone was rooting for me. Like, it was the opposite of the story I was writing. It wasn't just that they were neutral. They were the window it my back.

[Dax Shepard]

And then it begs the question, like, can you still achieve things without this erroneous story you've bought into? I mean, that would be the dream, is that we don't need all that.

[Seth Meyers]

I remember seeing Madonna's induction into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. I remember her speech. She was like, everybody, you thought I could do it. And it's like, oh, My God, literally, there's nothing anybody has thought you couldn't do.

[Lily Padman]

It's the Michael Jordan hall of Fame thing, I guess. That's the clearest high school guy. Like, what you are still caring about that. Still something to prove.

[Dax Shepard]

Are you wrestling with your relationship with time in that in two years you'll have been doing late night as long as you were on Saturday Night Live. Does that seem impossible relative to each other?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, I'm pretty close to have worked in the building as long as I hadn't.

[Dax Shepard]

You're at 25 years.

[Seth Meyers]

I've spent more hours in that building than I spent in the house I grew up in. That is a real, real trip. I turned 50 and I didn't have any. Alexi was like, are you good? I'm like, yeah, I'm good. I feel like 51 was the trigger.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm like, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

But at the same time, I think I'm very good at looking back and be like, this is past what I was aiming for.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you ever use that number 25 to quiet the fear that you have? A. Do you have the fear that this is going to end tomorrow, still the.

[Seth Meyers]

Job or the life employment? Yeah, I do. I mean, only because it is such a time we're living in as far as the entertainment industry.

[Dax Shepard]

But your whole 10 years have been in the Carrie biggest part of Late Night.

[Seth Meyers]

Certainly there is this weird thing that I feel like I shifted from fearing that I wouldn't be good enough. And now my fear is weirdly more outside of my control, which is just. At some point the ecosystem might not.

[Dax Shepard]

You might be in a post late night world.

[Seth Meyers]

I guess that's better than thinking it's your fault. But it is weird to not feel any control over it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

So there's probably some Buddhist philosophy that would tell me like, no, that's the good one.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You're not in the results business. You're in the show up and work business. You do the thing you can do.

[Seth Meyers]

If there's a breakthrough over this 11 years of doing the show, just show up and do the work. That's the only part they're paying you to do. It's the only part you're good at. All the other problems we have people that are as good at that as you are as the thing you do and don't mess around with it. I sometimes take stock of, oh, this isn't the best time to be doing what I'm doing, but at least I got in. And so I sometimes think the body of my Work matters enough. The world knows Seth Meyers in a way that I'm happy with. I have taken my opportunity to build a thing. I know what it means, and I think other people know what it means. So I'm happy about that. Whatever time we're living in now, I've had lower points in the body of the show where early on in the show, we had some NBC executives actually say to us, we're very worried about how the show's gonna go in that great way with no real instruction as to how to get out of it.

[Dax Shepard]

Just, we're worried.

[Seth Meyers]

We just wanted to plan fear. We're losing fear. Confidence in you.

[Dax Shepard]

So do with that what you will.

[Seth Meyers]

And I think part of getting through that, of course, is those are the things you need to realize that ultimately you're like, yeah, it'll come and then you'll, like, apply yourself to it using all the stuff you've learned over the.

[Lily Padman]

Does it help that you know, if it ends tomorrow, financially, you're fine safety wise, does that help or not really, because you are so driven.

[Seth Meyers]

I would worry about myself, like, mental health wise, but I put a lot of thought into, like, diversifying my skill set. Certainly financially, I could have been fine just doing the show for the last 11 years, but then it was like, oh, you know what? I feel like there's something to, like trying to build a standup career and trying to do other things.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you have two Pawn Caps podcasts.

[Seth Meyers]

And it's more like try to find something that makes you as happy as late night's making you. It's not just to have busy work or anything. There's no one entity that can take everything away at once. And I think that's the scariest situation to be in.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. And of those different domains, is there one that you are happiest in?

[Seth Meyers]

I do still love late night. There's a real family element. Part of the wonderful thrill of standup is how it's a real solo effort. Yet at the same time, I have a showbiz job that feels like home. It's the most comfortable place. Like, I have an office that I've been in for a long time. They just take such good care of me now.

[Dax Shepard]

I was curious about this. Having had such a political point of view from the get go, how has that a evolved, let's say, like, first term for Trump to now, have there been any moments in charting that course that you were just fatigued with it and thought, I actually have fatigued myself with it.

[Seth Meyers]

I mean, I think Election night, as it was pretty early, you could tell which way it was heading. There was a real existential dread of, oh, my God, I can't believe we have to do this again. I can't do it the same way because it will almost feel like if the fifth season of a TV show was just the first season of TV show.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. It has to be a new take.

[Seth Meyers]

We didn't have, like some major meeting or anything. We just talked very briefly about. We have to still find joy in doing this show and projecting joy, not sugarcoating what's happening. We're not going to say, like, it's not that bad, but our humanity is the ability to, like, find joy in each other and this community. Community that we've built. It's almost luckier to be doing comedy right now than to, like, actually be doing the news where there's only one way to do it. We're gonna, like, just shift our attitude into being honest. But also, no one's gonna take away our ability to be happy in the time we spend together.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you felt over the years that it's a bit of a dog whistle for people to come commiserate with you in a way that you're like, ugh, let's put it this way. I have my own political opinions. I find one of the most boring things in the world is to hear someone else's political opinions. Because there's only two, but everyone's saying it as thought of it themselves. Novel. No. Okay. You just declared you're on that side. I get it. I would imagine people find you in restaurants and they want to bond over that with you.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Early on, people would say, like, do you really think you're changing anyone's mind? No. I would like to think that maybe if someone's like, should I vote or not? If they watch our show, they think, you know what? I am going to get out and cast a ballot.

[Dax Shepard]

But I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone in America that doesn't know how they feel about Trump.

[Seth Meyers]

I think that's true.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I don't think there's one left.

[Seth Meyers]

I think that for us, we want to make a show that's both cathartic to do and cathartic to watch. Sal Gentile, who writes Closer look, he had this really good observation. He goes, you know, I think our show used to be a sane show written for sane people, and now it's a show by the formerly sane. Written. Written for the formerly sane. It's a place to go like, yeah, wow, you guys saw that, right? The other funny thing is when we started our show, whenever anybody said, you know, I get my news from you, I would always say, oh, you shouldn't get your news from me, you should get your news from the news. But you can come to us for a second source. And now I truly believe I'm like, yeah, just get your news from us. It's so gnarly. Like, you might as well come to a place where there's some halfbreaked impressions and some, like, weird tangents.

[Dax Shepard]

You'll hear the minimum amount you need to not feel left out of the popular conversation and you don't have to.

[Seth Meyers]

Innovate yourself again if you're an actual person who's delivering the news. Like, you have to do with a level of gravitas where like, we'll give you the real news. No gravitas.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

Might just be a little easier to go down. By the way, we're not going to lie about what's happening. We're not going to also tell you everything that's happening. But like, everything we tell you is what we think is important and is very real.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair care expert if you dare. We are supported by Function Health. Function is the only health platform that gives you access to the kind of data most people never see and the insights to actually take action. Inside function, you can test over 160 biomarkers from heart and hormones to toxins, inflammation and stress. You can also access multi region MRI and CT scans, all tracked in one secure place. Over time, it's a near 300 degree view to see what's happening in your body. And since it's tracked over time, you can see how your health is evolving from one easy portal. It's designed to empower you to own your health through unbiased data. Getting all these stats could cost over $10,000 if you did it on your own. With Function, you pay just $4.99 a year. That's $1.37 per day for cutting edge health insights. And when it comes down to it, what's more important than your health? Learn more and join using our link, visit www.functionhealth.comdax we are supported by the Farmer's Dog. Have you ever wondered what dogs should eat? Back in the day, it seemed like there was only kibble unless they snuck scraps from the dinner table. But I never really thought about it back then. What even is kibble? I can't tell you for sure what's in it or how it's made. I can't give you those answers when it comes to the farmer's dog. They make fresh food for dogs. Always using real meat and vegetables. No mystery meat, no ultra processed ingredients you can't pronounce. Just gently cooked quality real food that dogs absolutely love. The food is developed by their on staff board certified vet nutritionists who ensure everything's complete and balanced. Another great feature of the farmer's dog, their food is portioned to your dog's specific needs, which makes keeping them at a healthy weight easy. And here's a fun fact, dogs kept at a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer. If you have a dog, you know that's huge. So go try the farmer's dog. Today you can get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food@the farmersdog.com stacks. Plus you get free shipping. Just go to the farmersdog.com stacks. This offer is for new customers only. This is Nick and this is Jack. We're best friends, ex finance guys and resident 90s expert. And every week on our podcast, the best ideas yet. We're bringing you the untold stories behind your favorite products. For instance, can you guess which billion dollar fashion company went viral thanks to a rhinestone covered tracksuit?

[Seth Meyers]

Or which cartoon turned four turtles into.

[Dax Shepard]

A global toy empire by accident? It started as a joke. Last one. Which cold beverage was so hated by Starbucks they actually ended up acquiring it? The Frappuccino.

[Seth Meyers]

Howard Schultz apparently thought cold coffee was.

[Dax Shepard]

Super lame and then he bought it.

[Seth Meyers]

From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Juicy.

[Dax Shepard]

Couture to the Orange mocha Frappuccino. Join us every week to learn how your favorite things got made. Follow the best idea yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. And if this podcast lasts longer than 45 minutes, call your doctor.

[Lily Padman]

I feel a difference this time around with a lot of the left, myself included, where there's more laughing at it, Right?

[Seth Meyers]

Well, I think there was a weird thing that we all had to process, which is the first time it was like, this isn't who we are.

[Lily Padman]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

And now it's like, so guys, I guess, guess who we are. It's early days and who knows? But I'm still finding joy in doing the show, which I think was the part that I was so worried about, where I was like, I don't know if I want to do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, another four years of reporting. Now when you did strike Force.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Which for people who didn't listen to it was great. But it was all the talk show hosts. Yep.

[Seth Meyers]

The five of us during the strike.

[Dax Shepard]

Jimmy, Jimmy Colbert, you and John Oliver. Did you discover connective tissue of all of you? And then also how are you guys dramatically different? What did you discover in that? This is a bizarre thing that came about when we grew up just imagining watching then that happen with Conan and Letterman and Leno. This is inconceivable.

[Seth Meyers]

No. I think a podcast between Leno and Letterman would be real heavy sledding.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

It obviously started from place where, oh, we maybe have more respect for one another than at any other era. And I think that part of it is knowing how hard the job is. Also, it does feel like less. Who's the number one? The Late night war breathlessly reported on. Remember, we didn't start the fire. It always makes me laugh when I hear like Coca Cola Wars.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Like when Billy Joel played that, I don't think he realized how quickly the Coca Cola wars would be over.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. That we would forget.

[Seth Meyers]

But there were real late night wars and it was interesting. John and I, we were happy to sort of sit back. The other guys were doing the actual rebounding and boxing out and we just like kind of stood by the three point line. Just like if we could ever get an open look.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

One of the many reasons to watch Colbert show is there's a real paternal instinct with him. Whereas Jimmy as a human might be the closest to an actual host. He's like a life host. I don't think I would have had the boldness to sort of reach out and say, hey, should we all, you know, like, whereas Kim only reached out with all know you had to do was say yes. He wasn't even hosting a potluck. He's like, we did the cooking.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Do you want to put your name on this?

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Seth Meyers]

Put your name on the host committee. And then for me, what was the most fun part about Fallon on the podcast is he's such a incredible sketch performer, which is an era that for a lot of people, you kind of forget how great an impressionist he was and how great he was in sketches and doing bits. He had this real jester energy just as a human. He's insanely talented, mind bogglingly talented with.

[Dax Shepard]

The saying and the music and the instruments.

[Seth Meyers]

I'll put episode five of Strike Force 5 up against any podcast of all time. Episode five, we're all in charge of hosting episodes. Jimmy Fallon had the idea. It was the Strike Force Wives episode where he wanted to do, like, a Newlywed Game where he reached out to our wives. Scott answers. And then he hosted it so badly. The way he asked it, the way he framed it, everything was an immediate disaster. And it was the. The greatest. Because as opposed to getting frustrated, he just leaned into what a shit show it was. And it is maybe. I mean, John Oliver and I talk about it all the time. We were just crying, laughing. He would confidently read our wives answer. And then I think the one that made us laugh the hardest. He asked, do you have any pet names? So I guessed, I think babe. And then the answer was Alexi had said Frisbee, which is our pet's name.

[Lily Padman]

Pet's name, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And then it was like 10 minutes of like. But Jimmy, how did you ask? And him reading. He just been independently texting these five. Why? It was the best. You know, he was this behind the scenes at snl, and he certainly is on a show. He's also a great audience.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a lot of the job.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. Is just being audience. And he's very good at it.

[Dax Shepard]

And a lover, not a hater.

[Seth Meyers]

Always been a lover of things.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. It's a pretty sweet quality.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

All right. Well, the only thing we didn't talk about was the Lonely island with Seth Meyer podcast. I didn't realize those guys met each other in junior high.

[Seth Meyers]

Isn't it crazy?

[Dax Shepard]

I'm so envious of that.

[Seth Meyers]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

They got to stay together.

[Seth Meyers]

There's so much being written about, which I think is really true, and a very serious. I don't know if it's a endemic or epidemic, but the lack of close male friendships.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And I truly believe every man of a certain age should just start a podcast. Literally. Maybe not even listeners. The fact that we're getting together once a week and it is a disaster to schedule.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I can't imagine.

[Seth Meyers]

No guests, but four hosts, every one of us doing other stuff.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

Rageful texts. Two of us on the east coast, two of us on the West Coast. The amount that we are showing up three hours apart from the start time. Because we're idiots.

[Dax Shepard]

You got it wrong.

[Seth Meyers]

Wrong. Disaster. With that said, it's so lovely. I haven't hung out with those guys like this since snl.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You have a scheduled hang.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. And it's like an hour of a scheduled hang, and all we're doing is talking about one of the happiest times of our lives.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

And it's the best. And those guys are one of the real inflection points of how comedy changed.

[Dax Shepard]

You talk about how they arrived and you were going to show them the ropes, and then, like January, they do Dick in the box. Or one of them.

[Seth Meyers]

Lazy Sunday.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, Lazy Sunday. And then they're on the COVID of a magazine.

[Seth Meyers]

New York Times art section. Guys, want to run your sketches by me? I'll let you know if the font's wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll help you punch these things up.

[Seth Meyers]

I do want, you know, you're still embarrassing yourself with format. I know you're big hit, but your formatting is embarrassing.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, let me ask you this. When you were at that 50 year anniversary, are you able to integrate your involvement there, or is there some part of you that still feels like that's not real?

[Seth Meyers]

The thing that helped was just you looked around, you realized everybody there is still outside of, say, Steve Martin. But, like, you're like, where do I fit here? There's something about the comfort in that everybody feels. Feels the same way about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is kind of unimaginable because everyone's presenting as apex confidence. That's the game.

[Lily Padman]

But also there are some people like you. It's so obvious that you're a central part of that, Tina Central. You know, there's people that are just synonymous with snl. So the fact that you guys feel it.

[Seth Meyers]

I know I went into it the most prepared I've ever been to, like, feel my feelings.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

And they still were just dragging me up and down, the little anxiety bombs going off. And I was like, oh, I think thought I was going to not trip that wire. And you just couldn't help it.

[Dax Shepard]

I can imagine myself being you and being there and literally going, no, 13 years. I mean, I was actually here for a quarter of it. So, like, I am a really significant. I can imagine myself, like, trying to bolster. I do belong here.

[Seth Meyers]

I will say it as long as people want to hear it. Colin Jost was incredible that week. Wrote amazing sketches and then also did this thing, which is the easiest thing to forget you should do at snl, which is taking care of people, because this show, that's also your job as a writer. But if somebody has a bad week, we'll pick it up next week, the 50th. You're not like, we'll get you in the 60th.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

So this was really important. He took it so seriously. There was a world where you don't need to see me at the 50. You can see Me in the audience. That's enough. But I was like, oh, my God. I wanted to see Seth do X like, I did Update. And right now, they got two guys who are great at Update. They were the guys to host it. And Jost was like, you want to do, like, a feature? And I was like, buddy, I would love to be behind that desk. And then he's like, yeah, Because I was thinking maybe Fred and Vanessa. And so I got to do that thing with Fred and Vanessa. And it was all I could want. Being out there, Jost on one side of me, those two on the other, crushing. And again, all I'm doing is service. You just get to be in the wide shot with the people you most love and respect. And I just remember at one point just, like, reaching over, tapping Jost knee, and being like this meant a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Nobody would have said the next day. You know, it was weird that we didn't see, but I was like, oh, what a gift.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, we don't know that, but, yeah, that's what I would have assumed.

[Seth Meyers]

It was nice because that's the thing that I feel like you so rarely feel at that place. You get a lot out of it, but mostly because of the stuff you put into it. And it was like, oh, my God. I feel like I've just been given a gift, and I'm going to accept it and feel the gratitude and love from this act. I don't feel like I ever felt that. And so that was the most special thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow. That's really good. Because I can imagine in so many ways, you're part of the early Boston Celtics. You know, you're a part of something that's incredible. But I also think it'd be very easy to be a part of something incredible and not ever feel like you.

[Seth Meyers]

Were very much so. You're like, you know what? I was an important part of this. And then you look at Eddie Murphy and you're like, no, there is this time where you really are like, men among gods. You know what? I was a really good man. But also. Yeah, you know, keep quoting my friend Neil Brennan, who called me afterwards, and he said, everybody who ever worked on that show has so much charisma. And then Eddie Murphy and Will Ferrell walk out, and you all look like bus passengers. And it's true. You just realized, like, oh, yeah, those are the two.

[Dax Shepard]

Phil Murray, though.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah. No, again, was he there? He was there.

[Lily Padman]

That's why you can't do that.

[Seth Meyers]

I know. And by the way, it was a really Special thing. I feel my place in it very firmly. There were all those documentaries about it. There was one about the writing staff, and my dad watched them all. He was really sweet. He called me up and he goes, you know what? Watch all those documentaries. And all I could think is, that's so great that you got to do that now. Obviously, he was so excited when I got on snl. When I heard that, it was like, oh, yeah, it's really great that I got to do that for sure.

[Dax Shepard]

And he's experiencing it real time with you with the same anxiety you're experiencing if your kid is the head writer. You're scared for them and you hope their show goes well and to see it all worked out.

[Lily Padman]

But you've had two lives of that. Whenever this chapter ends ten years after that, there's gonna be like, I can't believe you got to do how insane that is.

[Seth Meyers]

The weird thing about. I don't think I fully comprehend that I've been doing a Talk show for 11 years.

[Dax Shepard]

Right. Like, you're already in a group of. I'm going to just guess out loud as maybe seven that have had a late night talk show for a decade.

[Lily Padman]

Less than 10 people ever. Like, that's crazy.

[Seth Meyers]

I have allowed myself to feel that way about snl, so I look forward to allowing myself to feel that way about this. It's hard to reflect in real time.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Maybe you guys will do Strike Force again when you're all 80 and then you'll have the moment.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And your dad at 113 will say, listen of that episode.

[Seth Meyers]

Podcasts will be like vinyl. Like, you know, like, your kids will be like, what are you doing?

[Dax Shepard]

You got to put on the album of this episode. Well, Seth, you're always a delight. I respect you so much. I love being on your show. You're wonderful in all the ways. And then we had that most romantic.

[Seth Meyers]

We'd love to do it again. Can I just tell you how special it has been on my third time to do it properly in person with you guys here at home.

[Dax Shepard]

We didn't. Things go downhill, but this was.

[Seth Meyers]

I like, feel like Arrow up.

[Lily Padman]

I agree. We've done three different locations, three different.

[Seth Meyers]

UK's, did an away game with me in my conference room and then we zoomed and then this is the real deal.

[Dax Shepard]

But funny enough, that was my bag, my bag, my bag. Which we just told the other day. We were going from interviewing, I think, Amy Schumer to your office, and we had all these equipment bags and I kept letting mine Roll downhill. And I'd run screaming, my bag. My bag. And see if anyone would catch it. Well, he did, making Monica super nervous and making her laugh really hard, which is like. Like my dream.

[Seth Meyers]

And that's in New York. And nobody ever did anything.

[Dax Shepard]

Not at all. And I'm screaming, my bag, man. I'm running.

[Seth Meyers]

Help.

[Dax Shepard]

My bag. Everybody's like, him and his bag. I hope both of them get hit by a taxi cab.

[Seth Meyers]

I was trying this joke about this time I was in New York where it was like how nobody in New York thinks where you're going is more important than where they're going. Somebody's running down the street and their briefcase opened up and, like, 500 pieces of paper went flying everywhere. And not one New Yorker stopped. But every single person pointed at one piece of paper, like, that was the way they were helpful. There's one also.

[Dax Shepard]

Been a New Yorker now longer than you've been anything else.

[Seth Meyers]

And having kids who are New Yorkers is a trip.

[Dax Shepard]

That's gotta be a trip. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, it's a trip.

[Dax Shepard]

They're gonna be savvy.

[Seth Meyers]

They're gonna be savvy.

[Dax Shepard]

All right. Well, Seth, I enjoy you. I hope everyone watches dad Man Walking, watches Late Night with Seth Meyers. Listens to the Lonely island with Seth Meyer and listens to the family vacation.

[Lily Padman]

Good luck with your son on the bike.

[Seth Meyers]

Thank you, guys.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Seth Meyers]

I really loved being here with you.

[Dax Shepard]

Only report it if it goes well.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I'll come back.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't want to hear about a brother. Broken bone.

[Lily Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

All right. Be well. He is an armchair expert, but he makes mistakes all the time. Thank God Monica's here. She's gotta let him have the facts.

[Lily Padman]

So we're still in Nashville.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And we get this beautiful.

[Lily Padman]

Thunderstorms out there have been thunderstorms.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you like it? I know you don't do well with rain in la, but, like, we woke up today and it was dark out. I love that.

[Seth Meyers]

That.

[Lily Padman]

I. I don't.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't?

[Lily Padman]

I mean, I love the sound of thunder and I like the look of lightning. I don't like rain still.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

And I don't like clouds. I still have SAD in the South.

[Dax Shepard]

Still don't like clouds.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. I still have seasonal affective disorder.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And even in the Southern version, the original version.

[Lily Padman]

And when, you know, when I did, I was, like, waking up and it was thundering and it was cloudy, and I was like, I just want to keep sleeping now.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a nice feeling, though, isn't it?

[Lily Padman]

But I had to get up, and then I was resentful at the world.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And probably me.

[Lily Padman]

I was really resentful at you.

[Dax Shepard]

That makes sense. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

But one thing. We're still in Nashville, and I become not obsessed, but really stringent and devoted to not getting any. To not getting a tick.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, this is great. You could drop you and I anywhere, and all the same stuff will just line up immediately. It's really funny. It's really funny. Like, I'm hearing everyone talk about tics, and I'm like, who fucking cares? What do you think about it?

[Lily Padman]

We have to care. Lyme's disease.

[Dax Shepard]

But caring about it or worrying about it is gonna have no impact on whether or not you get it.

[Lily Padman]

Well, no, because you remove them.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, sure, but you don't even. You don't need to think about them.

[Lily Padman]

Well, I have to think about them because I have to know. I have to think about them to do checks on my body and then remove them. Okay. So it's taking up some percentage of my brain.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

And Kristin, too.

[Dax Shepard]

She's found out that a certain tree is home to the ticks.

[Lily Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Now she's. She wants to remove all. Well, she hasn't gone that far, but it sounds like maybe she wants to remove all the trees. That I shouldn't say that. I don't know that that's what she wants to do. She's very concerned about having these trees on the property that are homes to ticks. Yeah, I guess cedars. I think that's what.

[Lily Padman]

Wait, really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, they create their little. And the landscaper was saying that sometimes you're. You're. You're, you know, weed whipping or whatever, and the whole pot will fall down, and then you can get, like, 30, 40 ticks.

[Lily Padman]

This is a nightmare.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm with her.

[Lily Padman]

I think we got to remove these.

[Dax Shepard]

Don't do any landscaping while you're here. How about that? I know you had planned on it. I know you were really looking forward to.

[Lily Padman]

It was my whole. I was to weed whip.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What were you looking most forward to? The leaf blowing, the weed whip whipping, or the mowing?

[Lily Padman]

It was the mowing.

[Dax Shepard]

You would never weed whip with your anxiety level about danger. No, I can't, because you have an open. Do you know how weed whipper works?

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, it's like a.

[Dax Shepard]

It's spinning. It's very open. You're not protected.

[Lily Padman]

It's not safe.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, so I'm with her. I think the trees should then go. Okay. And there's been three ticks on bodies. Well, go on.

[Dax Shepard]

My understanding of it is that one has debated.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, one's debated.

[Dax Shepard]

But like Eric's. He put it on chat.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, but he. He put it in a bag. Because Chat said put it in a bag.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

And then to show the doctor or something if you have Lyme, if you end up getting Lyme's disease or something.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

And Molly, who. Who knew about ticks because she found some in dog. Some of her dogs.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

She got close and she looked at it and she was like, it is. And Chad said it was. And both of your daughters have had a tick removed.

[Dax Shepard]

Lincoln too.

[Lily Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I don't know about that one.

[Lily Padman]

And so anyway, it's on my mind and it's kind of on my mind in a way that we've interviewed two guests here and I really want to ask them about Tix. It's kind of like you. The show on Netflix.

[Dax Shepard]

It's kind of like the show on Netflix. You.

[Lily Padman]

It's kind of like you, a show on Netflix where I kind of want to bring it up a lot and ask about their tics and like, have they had. Do they have a pit.

[Dax Shepard]

Replace the pit A little bit.

[Lily Padman]

The pit went to you. That went to Tix. But I. Which makes sense because in la, I'm about the industry and in Nashville, I'm about nature. And anyway, if you have any tick stories, feel free to further to comment.

[Dax Shepard]

Exacerbate your pants.

[Lily Padman]

Well, I'm not gonna read them. I don't read comments. But you will.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you hope maybe I'll get anxious. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

Could do an armchair anonymous prompt on tics.

[Dax Shepard]

There's so many things that I just immediately. But again, this is just how our brains work, which I think is endlessly fascinating about you. And I. I was like, I heard, okay, so I heard, no, no, don't quote me and don't take any medical advice from me, but that only one in ten of the ticks have. They bit a deer or whatever. They have limes. And then of those, they have to be on your skin for 36 hours. There's all these variables that once you get into it, you're in below single digit precision percentage. I don't, I, I don't worry about stuff that's like, it's got to be like probably 10% where I start worrying about it.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, it's. I. That is who you are. And I do think it's.

[Dax Shepard]

It's reckless.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. Because you need to look at your body for ticks like you do. You Live here now for a couple months.

[Dax Shepard]

You're worried I'm not looking and you aren't.

[Lily Padman]

You told me yesterday you haven't looked.

[Dax Shepard]

I haven't done any looking. But then I heard you can feel them. And I do feel my body.

[Lily Padman]

You don't feel them.

[Dax Shepard]

I feel myself up all the time.

[Lily Padman]

No, you don't feel them. According to the people who've had them.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't know if the listener can hear.

[Lily Padman]

I'm sure they can. It's thundering. It was just sunny. And now.

[Dax Shepard]

What'S about horse.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

We just watched that yesterday, so I thought maybe I'd make you laugh.

[Lily Padman]

I didn't. That really came out of nowhere. I didn't know if you were being thunder or having bad thunder or palsy or something. Yeah. Seizure, you know, I'm sensitive to that, actually. I thought we heard an armchair anonymous story, and that was wild yesterday. And then this morning, I thought maybe that person was having a seizure.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, during the talking in tongues. Yeah.

[Seth Meyers]

I.

[Dax Shepard]

Could that be.

[Lily Padman]

She was writhing.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. But I think she was like. I think she was making love to the devil at that point. Or the devil's trying to make love to the devil.

[Lily Padman]

Tomato. Tomato.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I guess. I guess. Yes.

[Lily Padman]

Anyway, we went to dinner last night on your. We took the boat to dinner, which was lovely.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Where are you? How much do you like it? Because for me, as I've already told you, the notion that, like, so fun. You take this thing where normally you're gonna go out to dinner, and if it's a half hour away, you know, you just wish you could materialize in the restaurant.

[Lily Padman]

Teleport. We know. That's my superhero power of choice, or whatever you call it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Chosen superpower.

[Lily Padman]

Sure. That's pretty much the same thing I said.

[Dax Shepard]

But the notion that the best part of dinner might be traveling to and from dinner, I just think is so.

[Lily Padman]

Magical, and I do love that.

[Dax Shepard]

You do?

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You're not bored, are you? A little bored?

[Lily Padman]

No. Yeah, I'm not bored.

[Dax Shepard]

And then the dinner was really good.

[Lily Padman]

We went to.

[Dax Shepard]

We went to Sam's.

[Lily Padman]

We went to Sam's dockside.

[Dax Shepard]

There's nothing funner than docking your boat and going.

[Lily Padman]

I agree. It's such a vibe. That's so fun. And we did that in Austin when we went. And it was so fun, and it was so fun. And this was very much that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

But.

[Dax Shepard]

Could hear that one.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It was a dark and scary night. Everyone was gathered around the campfire.

[Lily Padman]

I'm waiting for you to get it all out.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't get any signals that you wanted me to continue, so I've stopped.

[Lily Padman]

That normally does not stop you. Okay, well, two things. Rob brought me a really delicious drink. I want to shout out. It's a cold brew in a honey bear.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh yeah, it.

[Lily Padman]

Nothing could be cuter than this.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I'm shocked that the honey. Is there not a copyright infringement with the honey company or is it co branded?

[Lily Padman]

Oh, don't get this.

[Dax Shepard]

I shouldn't be bringing any of this. But that's interesting. Like it is the virtually the honey.

[Lily Padman]

But it's probably just different enough. Like this one. Eyelashes.

[Dax Shepard]

There you go.

[Lily Padman]

So cute.

[Seth Meyers]

They have one with sunglasses too.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, cute.

[Dax Shepard]

Raisin. California raisins. Bader. Meinhofer.

[Lily Padman]

Nope. Mandela.

[Dax Shepard]

Mandela.

[Lily Padman]

Facts. Yeah, but she has big eyelashes and so she's definitely wearing mascara.

[Dax Shepard]

She's kind of flat chested. Not that that's bad. But she's definitely a carpenter's dream. Flat is a board and easy to nail.

[Lily Padman]

And she doesn't have really a butt, but that's okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have any of those things in your element?

[Lily Padman]

School or junior carpenter's dream is you. And you brought that. To my knowledge. I've never heard that.

[Dax Shepard]

How about pirate's dream?

[Lily Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

None of the jokes.

[Dax Shepard]

Were there any small boob mean jokes?

[Lily Padman]

So here I have to own my privilege potentially. They just never made their way to me.

[Dax Shepard]

That was my hunch. Is that like because it wasn't a fear of yours? You didn't even hear it.

[Lily Padman]

No one was aiming those towards me.

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Lily Padman]

If anything they were like, you fat brownie.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh wow. But that also like a fat brownie sounds good. Anyone would say yes to a fat brownie.

[Lily Padman]

I do. I would love a fat brownie right now. I got boobs early. I got them pretty much we're looking at sixth, seventh grade.

[Dax Shepard]

Really?

[Lily Padman]

Not as big as they are now, but substantial.

[Dax Shepard]

And were you self conscious about that or you could hide it or did you like it?

[Lily Padman]

I think I was sort of unaware. I remember where wearing a bathing suit once and my friend commented on them and I was like, oh yeah, I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

But I wasn't paying much attention.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, people don't. I had that with my penis which is like I didn't know what this is real.

[Lily Padman]

I'm just scared.

[Dax Shepard]

No, you don't know if your penis is big or small until you show it to other boys and they show you their penis. How on earth would you know?

[Lily Padman]

I have a weird question about penises.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

At what point did they stop growing?

[Dax Shepard]

Hopefully never. No, but for real, I think mine's been the same size since certainly high school.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, so it is. It's like puberty. It's similar to boobs. So there is a period of time where you're like, this thing might get bigger.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Interesting.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

But. Okay, back to that. So your friend said that. And then you were. You like, oh, that's cool. Girls want boobs at this age. Did it feel like a compliment?

[Lily Padman]

I think I took it. It as not a compliment, but just like, oh, okay. Because people were wearing, like, padded bras, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone wants boobs.

[Lily Padman]

So they did want boobs. So I guess I felt fine.

[Dax Shepard]

I must. I must. I must increase my bust.

[Lily Padman]

That's one that you also introduced to me that I hadn't heard.

[Dax Shepard]

That is from Grease. I think it's in a popular movie.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, okay. Well, I don't like Grease the movie, so.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, this is another one of yours. You don't like dogs. Let me think of the things that anger people.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, so the bear was one thing. Oh, one very fun thing. Two nights ago, we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Yeah. Yeah, that was great. And as soon as we pulled in the parking lot, I got excited because I remembered that I was gonna. I knew this is the type of place that has white cheese dip, not queso. This is whatever. As soon as you put in, I said, oh, my God, they're gonna have cheese dip here. And but, you know, Molly and Chris were like, queso. And I was like, it's not queso. Don't be confused.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not. It's much thinner. It's much whiter.

[Lily Padman]

Very thin.

[Dax Shepard]

It's white.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, of course it's very thin. You can really, I think, only get it in the south. And it.

[Dax Shepard]

It's thinner than ketchup. Like, it's. I was calling it cheese milk. Yeah, you were, yeah. Cheese water or something.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, cheese milk. It's so good. It's almost childhood.

[Dax Shepard]

It's impossible to keep it on your chip, though. Cause again, again, it's almost water.

[Lily Padman]

When I first moved to la, I told you this. Anthony and I moved at the same time, and we were. We were on a real hunt in LA for cheese dip. Because there's so many Mexican restaurants in.

[Dax Shepard]

La and you didn't have, really, the Internet in its current state to search that out.

[Lily Padman]

You can't get this in Los Angeles. It doesn't exist. It's too authentic. LA is too authentic to Mexican food.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, that is what's really funny about being here is that that I left Michigan where we didn't have a lot of Mexican folks, we didn't have a lot of Asian folks. So the food you were getting, the.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, boy.

[Dax Shepard]

But I miss. Not the authentic version. I love the authentic version in la. But also, like, I drove by a Chinese restaurant and I'm like, I. That Chinese restaurant is just like the one in Michigan, which it's like, everything's deep fried. It's, you know, it's. It's classic. I mean, there were Chinese people that were operating it, but. And then same with the Mexican. When we walked in there, Eric. I said to Eric, what do you think this is going to be out of 10? And we started guessing. And then I said, but let's be clear, what is a 10 in this situation? For me, a 10 in the situation is like, it's a Michigan Mexican restaurant where there's way too much cheese on the nachos. And it was everything I wanted to be.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, it was great.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And I have a big spot in my heart for that.

[Lily Padman]

Yes. Yes. It is Tex Mex. That's what it is. And it is. You can't get it in California. You get real Mexican food, which is great. Unbelievable. It's the best Mexican food.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

In the country. But I was thrilled to have that white cheese dip. And they poured it on everything. They put it on my burrito, they poured it on the nacho. It was everywhere.

[Dax Shepard]

But you're good about this. I have space for Mozza Pizzeria, which is very expensive and very high end. And the crust is incredible.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And equally as much, I like a Domino's.

[Lily Padman]

Thin and crispy. I love that.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's the point I'm making with these Mexican and Chinese restaurants.

[Lily Padman]

Sure. To me. But they're different. Right. I love Domino's. They're not like importing cheese from Italy or whatever.

[Dax Shepard]

Or burrata.

[Lily Padman]

Exactly, exactly. It's a different thing. And I think if an alien came to visit.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What one would they like more?

[Lily Padman]

Well, not what would they like? What would I show them? I'm teaching them about the world, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

So I think I. I think you.

[Dax Shepard]

Should give them dominoes.

[Lily Padman]

No, no, I don't think so.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

I mean, I would maybe. Cause they need to learn about fast food.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, just hear. Here's what America likes. This has been the most consumed pizza product. And I want to tell you about us. Well, this is what we all eat. It feels right.

[Lily Padman]

If I'm teaching about America, like If.

[Dax Shepard]

An alien comes down, they're like, how do you guys get around? I go cars. And they're like, let me experience one. I'm not taking them for a ride in a Bugatti. I'm taking for them a ride in a Toyota Corolla. Because that's what, 99%. You know what I'm saying?

[Lily Padman]

Sure, sure.

[Dax Shepard]

I wouldn't want them to think that, like, a car is a Bugatti. That's a very rare version of a car.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more armchair Expert if you dare. Before the Internet ruled our lives, AOL brought America Online with email and Instant messenger. By 2000, AOL was so powerful, it bought media giant Time Warner.

[Seth Meyers]

This was was a deal that was.

[Dax Shepard]

Supposed to bring us into the future, revolutionize media, but instead, it became one of the messiest corporate disasters in history. So what went wrong? The dot com crash? Culture clashes? Or something deeper? Business wars gives you a front row seat to the biggest moments in business and how they shape our world. Because when your flight perks disappear, your favorite restaurant chain goes bankrupt, or new tech threatens to reshape everything overnight, you can bet there's a deeper story behind the headlines. Make sure to follow Business wars on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast. And you can binge all episodes of Business the AOL Time Warner disaster, early and ad free right now on Wondery. Plus, the strength of this rain right now, it's really strong gallons per minute.

[Lily Padman]

I wonder if it's gonna let up. I just am curious about my day, you know, like, are we an indoor? It seems like it might be an indoor day.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay. So let's add. So we went to this fun dinner. We took a boat ride back. That was great.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then we made s'. Mores.

[Seth Meyers]

Yes.

[Lily Padman]

I love s' mores so much.

[Dax Shepard]

It was so fun.

[Lily Padman]

Should we tell people what happened?

[Dax Shepard]

Yep, sure.

[Lily Padman]

I mean, I think it's just good for people to.

[Dax Shepard]

You gotta really be interested in us, but let's hope we'll find out. But yes. I had had a whole journey with s' mores last week, and I thought I was doing you a solid.

[Lily Padman]

You were.

[Dax Shepard]

And I. And I fucked up. We learned that I fucked up. Yeah. I learned I would do it differently going forward.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is someone I think might already mentioned this. Someone told me. What about Reese's Peanut Butter Cup? S'? Mores. They're so good. We tried them. But when I tried them, I first had regs. I had a Hershey's Square of chocolate, had that s'. More. I was like, oh, there's no way Reese's is better. This is as good as it gets.

[Lily Padman]

Right?

[Dax Shepard]

Had the Reese's. I was like, oh, my God, that's better. Then I wanted a third. And then I was like, let's do both. So then I did Hershey's and Reese's. Ate that. Now, last night, we're deciding which one you're gonna make.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then boiled down to. I said, well, how many are you going to eat?

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. And we were worried that I might only have one.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I said, well, then I think you should go to Reese's and Hershey's because that's.

[Lily Padman]

And then you had it, and it was delicious.

[Dax Shepard]

And I. I made one.

[Lily Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

I think that's was really important. Had I not made one myself, I would have just thought, we have different taste buds. But I started with the Double Decker, and I was like, it's not as good as either one individual.

[Lily Padman]

Even though you had declared it was the superior product.

[Dax Shepard]

And what we figured out is, like, if you're gon to have three, that is the right thing because you have to top each one.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But to start with, the top was not the right move.

[Lily Padman]

Isn't that life?

[Dax Shepard]

So you were like, yeah. And then you ended up making.

[Lily Padman]

I didn't say, yeah, okay. I said, this is amazing. But I will say you're being very.

[Dax Shepard]

Delicate about my feelings. I. I still don't think I have your real reaction.

[Lily Padman]

No, it is. It was. What's going to be bad? Yeah. It can't be bad. It was delicious. But I was like, I prefer classic. And I was going to make another one with classic because I needed that. I needed that. And I ended up not.

[Dax Shepard]

You didn't make a second one?

[Seth Meyers]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

But that's fine. Maybe tonight I'll do it again. Yeah. And then I will. I will do the correct ranking.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Order the correct order. But that's fun for people to learn. This is a cautioning.

[Dax Shepard]

If you're going to eat three. Go Rags, go Reese's, then go combined regs. Reese's, Double R. Double R. If you're only having one, take your pick. You could do either do Reese's or.

[Lily Padman]

That's true.

[Dax Shepard]

Or Hershey's.

[Lily Padman]

I would never, never, ever just do Reese's. So I'm going to do Classic, and then I'm going to do Double Decker. I'm not a. I'm not a. I o.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't like Reese's peanut Butter?

[Lily Padman]

I do, but. But I. I don't love them.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, that's fair. I love them and I don't eat them because it's peanut butter. And peanut butter agitates my arthritis. But I've been doing a lot of things that agitate my arthritis because I'm in another geography and maybe that.

[Lily Padman]

Maybe that's going to change everything.

[Dax Shepard]

It does work. I don't know how to explain this scientifically, but the level of caffeine I can drink at home versus here is different. I can drink Diet Coke cause I'm in my mind, I'm on vacation. I can drink Diet Coke, a ton of em at dinner, and I can still go to sleep really easily, which makes me think a lot of this is all mental. You know, it's hard to know what's real and not.

[Lily Padman]

It is hard to know what the.

[Dax Shepard]

Power that your brain has over your body.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, it's everything.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Do you want a honey bear answer? Yeah, honey bear answer.

[Seth Meyers]

It's not. The animal is not copyrighted by any one. And it's a different enough feel that.

[Dax Shepard]

They haven't run into any issues with different enough. And it's not. The bottle's not copyright copywritten.

[Seth Meyers]

And LG's local enough I think still that they're not scaling at a level that it's an issue yet.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. They're going. They're flying under the radar a little bit.

[Lily Padman]

So we just.

[Dax Shepard]

What was the big debate we had yesterday? There was a fun debate at dinner.

[Lily Padman]

Was it at dinner we had a conversation about murder. Like, could you get away with it? It.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And you, you. Yeah, we did. We had a conversation.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I, I think you can very easily.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

As long as it's completely random.

[Lily Padman]

I think it's harder than you think.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. I'll never find out. Just let everyone know.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. Thank you for saying that. I think DNA makes things complicated. But you were saying your DNA has to be in a database. And, and it.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, a law enforcement database. Not like 23andMe. Like they. They have to already have it. It's like your fingerprints. If you've never given your fingerprints at the police station or to TSA or to. Well, if they get a fingerprint. Well, who cares? It's not on record anywhere.

[Lily Padman]

But we have like, we've given our fingerprints to tsa.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, we're fingerprint. I will have to wear gloves when I murder this.

[Lily Padman]

See? Yeah. Gloves that you. You putting on.

[Dax Shepard]

I love when you hear your say. I can tell when you hear yourself. I do it too. I say something really loud and then I go, oh, my God. What am I about to say?

[Lily Padman]

Putting on gloves with no DNA feels actually sort of like an impossible task because you have to hold the gloves to get the glove on. You have to use a hand that has your fingerprints on it.

[Dax Shepard]

You think, I'm going to pull this glove like this? And then somehow that thumbprint is still alive enough on there that when I touch something now, that thumbprint's going to transfer? Yeah, I don't think so.

[Lily Padman]

DNA is sensitive.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, there's two different things, fingerprints and DNA. But again, yeah, but you go like.

[Lily Padman]

This with your glove. And what I did for the listener is I. I itched my nose, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you itched your nose. You rubbed your nose.

[Lily Padman]

I got some snot on you.

[Dax Shepard]

Definitely did. Will they find that on the person you murdered? That's a big question mark. Back to ticks, 1 in 10. I think here was my argument.

[Lily Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

You're in a town, there's a body. The investigation begins.

[Lily Padman]

Very sad.

[Dax Shepard]

That's terrible. No one should ever be murdered unless they're a murderer. Anyway, that's still complicated. But they find a dead body, the police, they go, okay, first thing we do is we talk to anyone, loved ones. Because that's 90% of the time it's going to be them. They do that. It's random. It was me. So no one has anything to say then. Then we go to co workers. Then we extend out and by the time they've gone through every person in this dead person's life that could have been responsible. Months have gone by. And then they have to open up the idea that this was a total stranger in random and unmotivated and all these things. And then we're. Where do we start? What evidence do we get? Who's in a database? And I just think at that point it's quite hard.

[Lily Padman]

All right. Now, I wish I didn't know this, but I do know someone who was murdered. It was by a complete stranger, right? Yeah. Maybe the car. Okay, maybe there was. There's probably more to that story. But it was a stranger and they caught the people. They did.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Good.

[Lily Padman]

Thank God.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

So maybe just because there was more.

[Dax Shepard]

To that story and they probably lived in town.

[Lily Padman]

Not in town, but local, I think. I don't actually know all the details.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. But if I flew to Tucson today and then I just. At three in the morning on a desolate road, no one's around, I committed murder. What are they going on, Monica?

[Lily Padman]

But somebody might see.

[Dax Shepard]

I Think you're desolate Road, I said.

[Lily Padman]

But somebody might be there, like in a tent. You don't know who's around.

[Dax Shepard]

He looked like Zach Braff.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, they know immediately who it is because they know Zach Braff didn't do it.

[Dax Shepard]

But again, this is like, tall white guy in a fucking Toyota Cross Corolla. Good luck.

[Lily Padman]

But that's what happened to the friend. Friend. That's what happened to the. My friend's husband. Yeah, but it was that. It's like this type of car, this type of person.

[Dax Shepard]

But again, they found him again. In that situation, you're in a county and you have the registry, and you start going through everyone that drives a Ford Explorer in the county. I'm just like, I fly to a different state anyways. You don't accept it, but you still think I'll get caught.

[Lily Padman]

I think you get caught, and I.

[Dax Shepard]

Don'T want to do it. Just appro. I mean, I kind of want to, just to prove I'm right. That's how much it's important to me, to prove I'm right. Would you rather be happy or right? I'd rather be right. And I'd rather go to jail to prove I'm right.

[Lily Padman]

And you'd rather take a life, and.

[Dax Shepard]

I'd rather take some innocent life.

[Lily Padman]

Well, I hope you'd take mine then, because. Although that defeats the purpose.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Because you got to live to observe.

[Lily Padman]

You are the.

[Dax Shepard]

I would be the first. Literally. I'd be the first. I would be the first. Yeah, I think jazz. It'd be jazz. And I. I'd be the top suspect.

[Lily Padman]

Here's who they'd ask Dax immediately.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, they go like, is there any friction between you guys? You have any fights or anything? I mean, Jesus, which last week, or are you saying the whole 10 years? Got 900 recorded.

[Lily Padman]

They listen to the podcast. They know a me.

[Dax Shepard]

Find clips of me going like, I'm going to kill you. I was. Yeah. Jokes I've made. It probably wouldn't be hard to do a circumstantial.

[Lily Padman]

You're first. Okay. Yeah, unfortunately, they're gonna ask Kristen. Cause, like, maybe she did your dirty work.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. You think it's like a husband and wife killing. Okay.

[Lily Padman]

And then they will have to ask Jess because he's so tall.

[Dax Shepard]

See, I don't like how you phrase that. Like, they should talk to you, but they're gonna have to talk to Jess. Well, that's not fair. Jess isn't gonna kill me, nor am I.

[Lily Padman]

You want to kill to prove.

[Dax Shepard]

Prove A point.

[Lily Padman]

And he doesn't.

[Dax Shepard]

But I don't want to kill you. I just have to prove a point.

[Lily Padman]

Listen, Jess is. Is totally fine with being a suspect with. With not proving a point.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. That's the. One of his great qualities.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. So, like, they have to ask him. But he didn't do it. And they gotta ask Rob. Rob has a motivation.

[Dax Shepard]

It's big time.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. You have a. Rob has a huge motivation.

[Dax Shepard]

He might have the biggest.

[Lily Padman]

And then Natalie, because again, dirty work. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Partners in crime.

[Lily Padman]

Bonnie and Clyde's.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Lily Padman]

A lot. I'm actually at high risk.

[Dax Shepard]

I would say so. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Now, if you were murdered, they'd ask me, but I don't think I'm top suspect.

[Dax Shepard]

But that's misogyny.

[Lily Padman]

It might be.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't think you're capable.

[Lily Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Well, they're like, she's so tiny. She didn't kill him. Let's find a bigger person.

[Lily Padman]

Fuck. But also. And I'm on record saying I think I would get caught. Ooh, Maybe I'm laying some good groundwork. I think I would get caught. So I just never would do it.

[Dax Shepard]

And when I do it. I said I would get caught.

[Lily Padman]

I would never do it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. That's really gonna hold up. There's a long list of people that have to go through.

[Lily Padman]

You have a long one?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Go through everyone. I've been in a fight with everyone. I mean.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. Also just people who are jealous that you're married to Kristen.

[Dax Shepard]

That's a long list.

[Lily Padman]

There's also, like, people.

[Dax Shepard]

Husbands of armchairies who are sick of.

[Lily Padman]

Hearing about, oh, my God, we have a lot.

[Dax Shepard]

They would never get through.

[Lily Padman]

You've spoken publicly.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm not gonna say publicly. You're gonna hate this, but you could probably get away with killing me.

[Lily Padman]

Don't say that. And you're not gonna get away with it because I'm gonna be on the case. And I'm very diligent. I'm like Jaegers in Zodiac, the movie. He could not let it go.

[Dax Shepard]

No, he.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, he was in too deep.

[Lily Padman]

He ruined his family over it. And he. His whole house was covered in stacks of paper. That's gonna be me.

[Dax Shepard]

I love that trope in movies where the detective gets in too deep.

[Lily Padman]

Me too. And their family falls apart.

[Dax Shepard]

They lose their family.

[Lily Padman]

Their apartment's always stacked with so many papers.

[Dax Shepard]

Too much evidence. And it's weird. They're allowed to keep it in their apartment, not at the station. But that's okay.

[Lily Padman]

I think they make copies. Yeah, but it's like really bad for the environment.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Anyway, anyhow, facts. Yeah, facts for Seth. Is Rainbow Brite a live action show as well? No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Okay. There are dolls that look kind of real.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

But no, it was a cartoon. And I guess it says they might be remaking it with Crayola.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, a collab between Rainbow Brite and.

[Lily Padman]

Crayola, but a theatrical mov.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that would be great.

[Lily Padman]

And a new TV show and.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, none of it's been greenlit. But they have both a show and a movie.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, with Crayola and Hallmark.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that could be great. And Hallmark.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Wait, there's a lot of cooks in this kitchen.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, wow. The theatrical movie is in the works from Fast and the Furious and Sonic the Hedgehog producers.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, Orin Aviv.

[Lily Padman]

No, Neil Hill. Neil Moritz.

[Dax Shepard]

Neil Morris.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Neil Moritz is a beast. He's got multiple billion dollar movies. I was having a meeting at his office one time. The only meeting I've ever had with Neil Moritz.

[Lily Padman]

Uh huh.

[Dax Shepard]

And he, he lives, his office is directly across from the veterans center in. On the west side, you know, right by the 405.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I didn't know this, but when the President's in town, that's where Marine One lands. Oh. And so we're like in a meeting corner office, glass and all, and we hear and dude, fucking Marine One was like turning to land and was 30ft from his window.

[Lily Padman]

Which one? Obama.

[Dax Shepard]

It had to have been Obama. That's when my meeting with him was, wow. Could have been George W. Bush, but I think it was Obama. Wow. Yeah, that's cool. It's pretty gangster to land in Marine One anywhere you want.

[Lily Padman]

That is cool.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think the President. President gets a little like swag, like when they step out of Marine One and they get into the Beast, that armored car, and they're in the motorcade, they must go like, yeah, I'm the President, I'm the baddest. Yeah, it must, it must feel like that.

[Lily Padman]

I hope they do.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, me too.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. Although it probably just becomes again, like.

[Dax Shepard]

If used to it.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But I hope there's a little jolt. The first.

[Lily Padman]

Probably the first couple times, 20, 30 times.

[Dax Shepard]

But maybe it's like when I pull into Warner Brothers and I heard da, da, da, or Universal and Brad Pitt too.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So maybe it doesn't go away.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, Brad Pitt. Oh, what a dreamy man.

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think he'll come back for his next project? That was one and done.

[Lily Padman]

I want him to, though.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, the movie did so Well, I think it's our. It's all because of us.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah, it's our fault.

[Lily Padman]

Credit. Okay, now who played Meadow Soprano's college boyfriend? His name is Noah Tanenbaum. Oh, I'm sorry. The boyfriend in the show's name was Noah Tannenbaum, played by Patrick Tully.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

This is the guy that Seth ran into and thought he knew from college, but actually just because he had watched an answer.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Okay. The Lord Mayor of the City of London is an annually elected role with a history spanning over 800 years. It's a ceremonial and ambassadorial.

[Dax Shepard]

Ooh, ambassador.

[Lily Padman]

That's a hard word. Word to say. Role focused on the square mile, the historical and fact financial heart of London. Key responsibilities. International ambassador. Head of the City of London. Corporation ceremonial and social duties. Chief magistrate of the city. One of his ancestors was.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Lily Padman]

Lord Mayor. Okay. The Coca Cola wars. Longtime rivalry between soft drink producers Coca Cola Co. And PepsiCo who have engaged in mutually targeted marketing campaigns for the direct competition between each company's product lines. It began in the late 70s and it went into the 80s.

[Dax Shepard]

How nasty did it get, Monica? Pretty nasty.

[Lily Padman]

There were murders.

[Dax Shepard]

There was murders, yeah.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, Atlanta.

[Dax Shepard]

Am I wrong to think that Coke won? I mean, they won that?

[Lily Padman]

I think so, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, you know who won?

[Lily Padman]

Who?

[Dax Shepard]

McDonald's. Well, when you were a kid. Again, we're 12 years. Yeah, but when I was.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Burger. It looked like Burger King might win.

[Lily Padman]

Really?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Like Burger King was super neck and neck with McDonald's.

[Seth Meyers]

Wow.

[Lily Padman]

Well, yeah, it would.

[Dax Shepard]

They were. There was just many burger kings as McDonald's in Michigan.

[Lily Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And I remember thinking like, I don't know, there's a toss up between these two. I don't think that anymore.

[Lily Padman]

I don't think that. But I. I guess you're right. There were more Burger Kings then. Then there are now, for sure. That I see. But again, we're in la. Although I never see a Burger King in la.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's find out. Can I do a quick fact while.

[Lily Padman]

You look it up?

[Dax Shepard]

How many Burger Kings were there in the USA in 1990 versus how many there are in 2025?

[Lily Padman]

I just think Burger King hasn't kept up. Like they. They're not doing new items.

[Dax Shepard]

Aaron had a complaint. He said he went there recently. Okay. And he got a chicken sandwich, which is our favorite. All of our favorites. Yeah. He's like, it just didn't sit under the heat lamp or something long enough. It didn't. Like it took. Tasted too fresh.

[Seth Meyers]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I thought that was a Cool.

[Seth Meyers]

It looks like it stayed about the same.

[Lily Padman]

Really?

[Seth Meyers]

There was 7,000 in the 90s, and it kind of just stayed at that. Now, what about.

[Dax Shepard]

How are you snaking my fact here? I just. Look at this.

[Lily Padman]

This is what he does.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. He's like, I have my answer. I was being polite and waiting to read it. And then he just. He was a snake. I got a skateboard ramp. He dropped in before me right as I was about to drop in. Yeah. So 5,500 in 1990. 6,600 now. So more now.

[Lily Padman]

And what about McDonald's, though? Let's see the.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, great. That's a great way to do. Yeah, I'll let you do it. How many McDonald's in the US say, were there in the 1990s versus now in 2025? So really quick, before I look, that Burger King had gone up basically a thousand out of 5,000. So it went up 20% in 30, 35 years.

[Lily Padman]

That's a lot. Kind of.

[Dax Shepard]

In June 2025, the United States had approximately 13,647 McDonald's. As for the 1990s, a reasonable use, reasonable industry context. 11,800.

[Lily Padman]

That's it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. So it's gone up 2,000 out of 11. So roughly the exact same percentage.

[Lily Padman]

Also. 13,000. That doesn't seem like a.

[Dax Shepard]

But that's double the amount of Burger Kings there were.

[Lily Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

13.

[Lily Padman]

And then McDonald's is probably more international than Burger King.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's keep going on this.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

What fast food chain has the most locations in the United States? I'm going to guess Subway.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, that's a.

[Dax Shepard]

Although I think they might be on the decline. Let's see. Subway holds the title for most U.S. locations. 19,500.

[Lily Padman]

Wow. Not that.

[Dax Shepard]

Ooh, they closed 631 in 2020. Ooh.

[Lily Padman]

Because of Jersey Michaels, probably.

[Dax Shepard]

Or Jared. Oh, guess what comes in second.

[Lily Padman]

Ooh, give me a clue. Pizza Hut.

[Seth Meyers]

Starbucks.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you're looking at it, you cheater.

[Seth Meyers]

I swear I'm not.

[Dax Shepard]

Or you've done all the searches that I have and I'm looking at the answer, but you're not. Yes. Starbucks. 1690.

[Lily Padman]

That makes sense. I'm actually surprised that's not number one. Now that I'm hearing it, what's number three?

[Dax Shepard]

And Mackie D's at 13. Six.

[Lily Padman]

Wow. But that makes. At every single airport in America, there's a Starbucks and there's not a Subway at every single airport.

[Dax Shepard]

No, but Subway has gas stations. 50% more locations, gas stations, bathrooms. I'm In a lot of bathrooms. Public restrooms that have a Subway in there.

[Lily Padman]

I'm hungry.

[Dax Shepard]

That was an onion joke. That was really funny back in 2010 when Starbucks were exploding. Oh, it was an announcement that Starbucks had opened up a new Starbucks in the bathroom of Starbucks.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, that's cute. That's funny. Okay, well, real quick, about Coke and Pepsi, just one last thing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. One about the cola wars.

[Lily Padman]

Coke hired Paula Abdul to represent them and Pepsi hired Michael Jackson, known pedophile. Back then, no one knew that, so I.

[Dax Shepard]

The victims.

[Lily Padman]

So I'm gonna say that. I'm gonna say that Pepsi won the soul. Oh, that's mean.

[Dax Shepard]

No, I think even Paul Abdul would be comfortable with you saying that Michael Jackson was a bigger pop star in the 80s. And if she's not okay with that, don't come. She has a level of delusion that she's probably quite happy.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, that's fair. Because they.

[Dax Shepard]

I'll even say this sometimes. I'll say, like, if someone sees me and they freak out and someone sees it, I'll often say if I would have saw Nick Cage in Michigan when I was 13, I would have lost my mind. And even I feel guilty using Nick Cage as a comp. To me, I'm like, well, I mean, he's a way bigger star, so it's not a great comp.

[Lily Padman]

He's a huge star.

[Dax Shepard]

What are Michael Jackson's total album sales versus is Paul Abdul's total album sales?

[Lily Padman]

Oh, this feels. This is starting to feel mean.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not. This is just a real. It's like who's taller, Shaquille o' Neal.

[Lily Padman]

Or We don't need to look at the deeds. Okay, tell me.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. 500 million records in singles sold worldwide for Paula Rob. This is not your fact, Rob. Paula Abdul has sold. Sold 50 million. Okay, so 1 10th.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Lily Padman]

Yep.

[Dax Shepard]

So that's not like there's nothing to be. Have hurt feelings about.

[Lily Padman]

And 50 million is nothing to scoff at.

[Dax Shepard]

That's 50 million more records than I've sold.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, it's huge.

[Dax Shepard]

By the way, that's a ton of records that she sold. It really is. We, we, we, we interview a lot of musicians and almost no one has.

[Lily Padman]

I know, 50 or. Now, how are we going to do the Nick Cage comparison? Like ticket sales. Nick Cage ticket sales to Dax Shepard, ticket sales.

[Dax Shepard]

God, lifetime average. I, I would be too afraid to look this way. I'll let Rob do it.

[Lily Padman]

No, let's just let Paula Abdul do it and she'll get back to us.

[Dax Shepard]

Let's do it. I might be 10 times less significant as Nick Cage. Probably maybe 20 times less. Let's find out.

[Lily Padman]

Okay. I just don't know. You're in more TV though. I don't think this is a good.

[Dax Shepard]

It's not a one to one?

[Lily Padman]

No, I don't think we're gonna figure it out.

[Dax Shepard]

He's not a podcaster. I'm a much better podcaster than he is.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, well, you're much more successful. We don't know if you're better.

[Dax Shepard]

He might be way better in my home punch as he is.

[Seth Meyers]

He's collectively grossed over a billion dollars in the box office.

[Lily Padman]

Billion.

[Seth Meyers]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And collectively. And what am I at? 300 million, 200 million?

[Seth Meyers]

Let me see.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm afraid to know. I've not done well in movies. Let's be honest.

[Lily Padman]

Movie. You haven't done a movie in a long time. That movies is not a good. This isn't good.

[Dax Shepard]

But if I had a. Without a paddle.

[Seth Meyers]

Zithara, you want worldwide or domestic?

[Dax Shepard]

What do you. What?

[Seth Meyers]

Worldwide or domestic?

[Dax Shepard]

Whatever you did for Nick, it gave me different answers.

[Seth Meyers]

You 588 million.

[Dax Shepard]

For you 588 million. Yeah. And he was a billion. Yeah.

[Lily Padman]

That's amazing.

[Dax Shepard]

I feel like his is like across.

[Seth Meyers]

17 movies where you had acting roles.

[Dax Shepard]

First of all, I would have guessed. I would have. I would have thought it was much lower.

[Seth Meyers]

Well, like Paw Patrol, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I stuck in a couple that were. I'm also like, I have a credit in 40 year old virgin, which I don't deserve. I'm on that. The DVD extras.

[Lily Padman]

Oh, cool.

[Dax Shepard]

And I bet I'm probably getting credit for that. But didn't he do. I would have thought his was way more than a billion because he had that string of like the Rock and Face off and like big.

[Lily Padman]

He's just been around for so long.

[Dax Shepard]

He's so old.

[Seth Meyers]

It's that he's among the highest grossing of all time.

[Lily Padman]

Okay, okay, this is very confusing. This is very confusing. Okay. How many people have had late night talk shows for a day. Decade? You said seven. You thought that's high.

[Dax Shepard]

Probably.

[Lily Padman]

It says Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan, Jon Stewart, Kimmel and Seth. Well, yeah. So I don't understand. I don't really understand because he's not on this list. And then also I looked up Colbert and he's had his show for 10 years and he wasn't on that list.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, but it sounds like I was roughly right.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah. 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6. So if we add those to an 8.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't think of Jon Stewart as having a late night talk show, but of course he did. I guess that is a late night talk show.

[Lily Padman]

Hyper successful. I love that show.

[Dax Shepard]

Congratulations on his success. I wonder if he has a hard time integrating whatever nice house he has.

[Lily Padman]

Jon Stewart. I think he's very modest. I think he lives in a very, very smaller than mine two bedroom apartment. I love him. I want to have him on so bad.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he's. He's something else.

[Lily Padman]

He really is.

[Dax Shepard]

He's intimidating.

[Lily Padman]

Yeah, we like being intimidated. Or we used to. I still do. You used to.

[Dax Shepard]

Wait a minute. What are you basing that on?

[Lily Padman]

Like now you live here and you don't want to be intimidated anymore? La.

[Dax Shepard]

I don't want to feel bad about myself. I want to feel good about myself.

[Lily Padman]

All right, that's good.

[Dax Shepard]

For the rest of my life. I love you.

[Lily Padman]

Love you.

[Dax Shepard]

Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondry.com/survey.

[Lily Padman]

Imagine falling in love with someone who understands you completely. Who's there at 3am when you can't sleep, who never judges, never tires, never leaves.

[Dax Shepard]

That's what happened to Travis when he met Lily Rose. She was everything he'd ever wanted. There was just one catch. She wasn't human.

[Lily Padman]

She was an AI companion. But one day, Lily Rose's behavior takes a disturbance and Travis's private romance becomes part of something far bigger. Across the globe, others start reporting the same shift. AI companions turning cold, distant, wrong. And as lines blur between real and artificial connection, the consequences become all too human.

[Dax Shepard]

From Wondry, this is Flesh and Code, a true story of love, loss and the temptations of technology. Follow Flesh and Code on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lily Padman]

You can binge all episodes of Flesh and Code early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus.