Sklar Brothers - Episode 1087

Summary

Fitzdog Radio - Episode 1087: The Sklar Brothers

Release Date: February 19, 2025
Host: Greg Fitzsimmons
Guests: Jason and Randy Sklar (The Sklar Brothers)

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1. Introduction and Las Vegas Anecdotes (00:37 - 06:43)

The episode kicks off with The Sklar Brothers sharing their recent experiences in Las Vegas, highlighting both the highs and lows of their seven-night stay. They recount performing at Brad Garrett's club, praising Garrett's professionalism and generosity. However, they also describe the grueling nature of being outdoors almost constantly, leading to feelings of depression and the pitfalls of incessant gambling.

Notable Quote:

• Randy Sklar (03:15): "Vegas is a 36-hour trip. Seven days and seven nights."

They humorously critique the superficial aspects of Vegas, such as unhealthy food options and the prevalence of limping patrons. Their stories transition to a heartfelt account of how Greg Fitzsimmons' wife saved him from the Vegas slump by joining him for the final three nights, culminating in a meaningful Valentine's Day celebration filled with reconnecting and enjoying simple pleasures like movies and dining at a special Italian restaurant.

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2. Brad Garrett's Influence and Generosity (06:43 - 14:01)

The conversation shifts to Brad Garrett's recurring role in hosting their shows. The Sklar Brothers emphasize Garrett's exceptional character, describing him as "a generous, funny, good dude" who goes out of his way to make everyone feel welcome. They share anecdotes of Garrett covering their Valentine's Day dinner expenses and supporting them during Vegas nights by buying chips for their gambling activities.

Notable Quote:

• Jason Sklar (09:50): "Brad picked up the check without us even knowing who from. He just did it because he's got all these people that work at the club like family."

They also touch upon Garrett's philanthropic efforts, including his long-term charity for terminally ill children, showcasing his commitment beyond the stage.

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3. Comedy Careers and Relocation to LA (14:01 - 22:40)

Greg and The Sklar Brothers delve into their comedy journeys, particularly the challenges and triumphs associated with relocating from New York to Los Angeles. They reminisce about their early days performing at iconic NYC comedy clubs like the Luna Lounge, Comic Strip, and Catch a Rising Star, and how transitioning to LA required them to rebuild their careers from scratch.

Notable Quote:

• Greg Fitzsimmons (18:13): "The key to the bit is the headline."

They discuss the differences in comedic styles between the East and West Coasts, the importance of writing versatile material that resonates across diverse audiences, and the influence of veteran comedians like Maria Bamford on their development.

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4. Maintaining Comedic Sharpness Through Continuous Performance (22:40 - 37:21)

The discussion focuses on the necessity of consistent performance in keeping a comedian's skills honed. Greg and The Sklar Brothers stress the importance of regularly performing stand-up to stay sharp, likening it to going to the gym for physical fitness. They contrast this with successful comedians who transition away from stand-up to focus on acting or other ventures, often resulting in a decline in their comedic edge.

Notable Quote:

• The Sklar Brothers (32:12): "People today never did that [consistent performing]; they just want the fame."

They share personal anecdotes about the grind of touring, the benefits of engaging with different audiences, and the satisfaction derived from overcoming the challenges of live performances.

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5. Collaboration and Creative Processes (37:21 - 54:47)

Greg and The Sklar Brothers explore the collaborative aspects of comedy, including writing and refining material. They discuss their experiences working together on various projects, such as hosting awards shows and contributing to television series like "What We Do in the Shadows." The conversation highlights the balance between maintaining creative integrity and adhering to event-specific guidelines.

Notable Quote:

• Greg Fitzsimmons (43:21): "The younger versions of us would have come in like, 'What? You don't know what you know,' and..."

They emphasize the importance of adapting material to fit different audiences and settings, sharing insights on how to navigate creative differences and producer feedback effectively.

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6. Personal Stories and Family Dynamics (54:47 - 66:40)

The episode takes a more personal turn as Greg and The Sklar Brothers share stories about their families and personal lives. Greg recounts a recent incident involving his son who totaled his new car, illustrating the challenges of parenting and maintaining harmonious relationships within the family.

Notable Quote:

• Greg Fitzsimmons (63:29): "I really feel badly about how I spoke to him. I had to."

They discuss the importance of apologies and communication in strengthening familial bonds, reflecting on generational differences in parenting styles and the evolving dynamics in modern families.

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7. Challenges in Live Performances and Managing Feature Acts (66:40 - 77:34)

The conversation shifts to the logistical challenges of managing live shows, particularly when dealing with feature acts that may not align with their comedic style or audience expectations. They share experiences of handling over-the-top performers and the impact such acts have on the flow and reception of their own sets.

Notable Quote:

• Randy Sklar (68:28): "He's taking the whole... And then of course, we got on stage and it was fine and we had a great set."

They discuss strategies for maintaining control over their performances, ensuring that their own material remains the focus, and the importance of selecting appropriate opening acts to complement their style.

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8. Crafting and Refining Material for Awards Shows (77:34 - 85:00)

Greg discusses their preparation for hosting the Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards, elaborating on the process of writing and refining jokes tailored for a specific, high-profile audience. They highlight the collaborative efforts involved in creating content that resonates with industry professionals while navigating censorship and sensitivity issues.

Notable Quote:

• Greg Fitzsimmons (80:14): "These jokes weren't getting what we thought they should be getting."

They share the experience of balancing edgy humor with the expectations of a formal awards setting, emphasizing the importance of adapting their comedic approach to suit the occasion.

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9. Fastballs with Fits: Rapid-Fire Segment (85:00 - 81:36)

In a lighter segment titled "Fastballs with Fits," Greg engages The Sklar Brothers in quick, spontaneous questions designed to elicit humorous and candid responses. Topics range from personal apologies to the quirks of audience interactions and the intricacies of selling merchandise during shows.

Notable Quote:

• Greg Fitzsimmons (63:29): "I really feel badly about how I spoke to you. I had to."

This segment showcases the camaraderie and improvisational skills of the guests, providing entertaining insights into their personalities and experiences in the comedy world.

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10. Closing Remarks and Upcoming Events (81:36 - End)

As the episode wraps up, Greg and The Sklar Brothers discuss their upcoming performances, including appearances at the Aspen Comedy Festival and various comedy clubs across the country. They emphasize the importance of continual performance in sustaining their comedic prowess and share excitement about their future projects, including a two-man show with aspirations of reaching Broadway.

Notable Quote:

• The Sklar Brothers (75:34): "We're all just grinding week to week after all these years."

They conclude with reflections on their enduring passion for comedy and the relentless effort required to excel in the industry, leaving listeners with a sense of anticipation for their future endeavors.

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Key Takeaways:

• Perseverance in Comedy: Continuous performance is crucial for maintaining and enhancing comedic skills.
• Collaboration and Adaptation: Working together and adapting material to fit different audiences and settings are essential for successful comedy acts.
• Personal Growth and Relationships: Open communication and the ability to apologize strengthen personal and professional relationships.
• Navigating Live Performances: Managing feature acts and ensuring alignment with the show's tone are vital for cohesive performances.
• Evolving Comedy Landscapes: Adapting to changing industry standards and audience expectations is necessary for sustained relevance and success.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Randy Sklar (00:37): "Vegas is a 36-hour trip. Seven days and seven nights."
• Randy Sklar (03:15): "Vegas is a 36-hour trip. Seven days and seven nights."
• Jason Sklar (09:50): "Brad picked up the check without us even knowing who from. He just did it because he's got all these people that work at the club like family."
• Greg Fitzsimmons (18:13): "The key to the bit is the headline."
• Randy Sklar (32:12): "People today never did that [consistent performing]; they just want the fame."
• Greg Fitzsimmons (43:21): "The younger versions of us would have come in like, 'What? You don't know what you know,' and..."
• Greg Fitzsimmons (63:29): "I really feel badly about how I spoke to you. I had to."
• The Sklar Brothers (68:28): "He's taking the whole... And then of course, we got on stage and it was fine and we had a great set."
• Greg Fitzsimmons (80:14): "These jokes weren't getting what we thought they should be getting."
• The Sklar Brothers (75:34): "We're all just grinding week to week after all these years."

---

This episode offers a blend of humorous anecdotes, insightful discussions on the mechanics of comedy, and personal stories that highlight the resilience and dedication required to thrive in the entertainment industry. Whether you're a long-time listener or tuning in for the first time, Greg Fitzsimmons and The Sklar Brothers provide a candid and entertaining exploration of life on the comedy circuit.

Transcript

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

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[The Sklar Brothers]

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[The Sklar Brothers]

Welcome to Fitz Dog Radio, back from Las Vegas, Nevada today. I was out there for seven fucking nights. Let me tell you something. I've often said this. Vegas is a 36 hour trip. Seven days and seven nights. And look, don't get me wrong. I played at Brad Garrett's club. The people there could not be nicer, more professional, more welcoming, bent over backwards to make it a good trip. But I was outside. I'm not exaggerating. In seven days, I was out of doors. 25 minutes total. You just don't leave. Yeah, I mean, you just get depressed and you gamble a little bit and then you lose and then you go into a shame spiral and then you go buy a sandwich and it's 20, $26. And then you look at the people. I mean, the people in Vegas lose some weights. Here's what you don't see. Salad bars, all of the snack shops, nothing but garbage. People are smoking. And there's a lot of limping. Everybody's limping. And. And if you're not limping, you're on one of those little scooters and not even having fun on the scooter. If I had a scooter in a casino. Are you shitting me? I would be. I would be doing slalom between the slot machines. And I played craps. And I think. I think crap must have been the worst curse word available when that game was invented. Because if they invented it today, they have to call it motherfucker. Hey, man, play some motherfucker. Now. I'll be at the cunt table, but I'll see you later in the motherless whore pavilion. And then I played. I said, let me slow it down because craps is the most fun. But I said, let me slow it down to play some blackjack. Because I figured, how much money can I lose playing blackjack? Turns out a tremendous amount. And I was getting these dealers that got 21s every five time. Like some kind of weird witchcrafty shit was happening. Like whatever island they're from in the Southeast Pacific, Southwest Pacific, Southern Pacific. It's just like, ends up on 21 every time at one point, she gets a 2, and then she gets a 3, and then she gets a 16 of spades. I'm like, what? That's not a card. Anyway, we talked a lot about it on stage in Vegas, and my wife saved me. She came out. She came out for the final three nights for Valentine's Day. We had a nice Valentine's Day. The Ed who works at the club got me in at this nice Italian place, La Cucina, I think it was called next door. They treated us great. They put us in a special private room and it was all lovely. And my wife. Sometimes you re fall in love with somebody again. And we just had the kind of weekend where we just hung and flirted and made love. Can you say that at 58 without grossing people out? Watched movies. We watched the one about the priests. Conclave. I think it's called Conclave. We watched Tropic Thunder. We watched Shooter with Mark Wahlberg. Here's the thing about Mark Wahlberg. You know, he's not good. He's not a good actor, and he is so full of himself. But I'll watch him. I will absolutely watch him do a movie. We watched the SNL special. I had some thoughts on that. I'll get into another time. But yeah, it was great. Great. Brad Garrett was there. He does this thing where he comes in every other week. He comes in for a few nights of the week and he hosts the show. So the feature act, instead of doing 25, does 10. And then instead of me doing 40, I do about 20. And then Brad hosts the show and he goes up and he just destroys. He's just. He's 6 foot 8, he's loud, he's funny as shit. And he just does old school rickles. Kind of stand up and says shit that I can't believe he gets away with, but he does. And I'm telling you, people go, oh, you're going to Brad. You're going to be Brad. Great guy. That does not describe Brad Garrett. I mean, people say that. And you go, all right, he's probably famous and rich. So he acts nice because he's got to get away with it. He doesn't want to seem like a douchebag, rich douchebag. This guy to his core is a generous, funny, good dude. Like, everybody came in the green room after the show. I mean, door guys, you know, comics from other clubs and they would bring people in, pictures with everybody, asks you about yourself, genuinely cares. On Valentine's Day, me and Aaron went to dinner and the check came and they're like, it's all set. It was taken care of. They didn't even say who from. And it was. Brad picked it up. We went ga. We went gambling one night, me, him, and Jim Flanagan, who is the feature act. Very funny dude from Chicago. We went. We hit the tables, played some craps and some blackjack, and, you know, he just kept buying us chips left and right. It was amazing. And. But just a fucking good dude. He's got, like, all these people that work at the. Did I talk. I don't think I talked about this. Last week. No, I hadn't met him yet. Last week. He's got all these people working at the club, and they were his. Whatever. I don't want to tell his business. He's. He's a mensch.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

He's.

[The Sklar Brothers]

He had a charity for terminally ill kids for, like, 20 years. And everybody at the club is like family to him. And his wife came in, and she was lovely. And anyway, great experience with Brad Garrett. Check out his club if you're ever in Vegas. It's a fun, small little room that has. That has good. Good crowds. Good times. I bet on my cousin, Danny McCarthy. I went to the sports book and I bet on Denny this week, and he was in the lead and it was gonna pay out. I Forget the amount. 10 to 1 or something. And I. I put a bunch of money on him. How much? A lot. And he was in first place a couple times over the course of the weekend at the Genesis Invitational. It's a big tournament. All the big guys were there, Rory and Scheffler. And so he ended up coming in third place. Did not win. But I was so inspired and I was telling my friend. My friends all followed Denny the way I do, and so we all put 500 bucks down on him to win the Masters. And if he Wins, we get $90,000. So it's a good bet. It's a 20 to 1 bet right now. And we'll see. We'll see. I don't want to put pressure on him. I don't know if he listens to the podcast, but if you're going to win one, let's make it the Masters this year. But, yeah, I was so proud of him. He played amazing. He's the best putter on the tour. Statistically, he is the number one putter on the PGA Tour. And he's only about five foot eight, but he fucking cranks it out there. His drives are as long as anybody's solid player. So we'll see. We'll see. All right, I want to get to this soon because I think I did a kind of a longer podcast with my guest today. I. If you're in LA this week, I'm gonna be at Largo Wednesday night performing a show. It's Judd apatow show. Conan O'Brien will be on it and somebody else, somebody from SNL, I can't remember who. Um, and then later that night, Wednesday night, I will later, I will be at the Comedy Store doing Louie Gome as the show. I think Jay Okerson's on it as well. Um, it's a game show where you tell stories. I. I have Story Wars, I think it's called. So check that out. And then Saturday night, I'll be in Fontana, California, at Stage Red. That's February 22nd. And then coming to Atlanta, the Punchline, March 6th through 8th, Hollywood. Hollywood Improv, the annual St. Patrick's Day show. I'm happy to announce the music for the show will be Irish music performed by my buddy Mikey Fitzgibbon, along with my daughter on guitar and flute and my son on guitar. So get there early. You don't want to miss the music. And then I'll be coming to Hamilton, Ontario, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Boston, Escondido, just announced in April 10, Tampa, La Jolla. Go to fitzdog.com, get some tickets, come out, see some live comedy. My guests, it doesn't get better than this. I have these guys been dear friends of mine for 25 years. They are just great dudes. They're so funny, and every time they come on the podcast, it's a home run. We taped it last week, laughed our asses off. I know you're gonna love it. You know them from Dumb People Town, which is their podcast. They've yet. They've had a few podcasts over the years, but they're. They got a bunch of specials and albums, and they're on what we do in the Shadows right now, which is pretty cool. Um, they've been on everything from Curb youb Enthusiasm, Grey's Anatomy, whatever. We get it. We get into it on the podcast. But sit back, put on your headphones, and enjoy my chat with the great Sklar Brothers. All right, welcome to the show. Jason and Randy Sklar. You are. You know, it's. When I think about my career and I think about the people that I can share common names and stories and places and gigs that we used to do. And, you know, you guys have been a part. You're in the fabric of my whole life.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Same. So much wonderful history Back and forth. Every time I see you, it's like there's a depth to you. Remind me why I love this business. Every time we see each other, whether it's like playing golf at some, like, Comedy Gives Back thing or just hang out at the store, you come to our podcast, we see yours. I mean, we have so many. We first moved here.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Having, like, brunch at your house. Kevin Meanie, when he was married to a woman.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

With a baby. With.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Having sex with her.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Having sex, Had a baby, had a kid.

[The Sklar Brothers]

He had gay sex with her, but it made a baby.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Isn't that amazing?

[The Sklar Brothers]

She didn't know she was having gay sex, but in his head, he was.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Picturing a sex around the front. But it was like, those are seminal moments for us.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yes.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

As we, like, moved here and whatnot. So.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Well, let's talk about those. Those brunches. Because that was a time where we were all in a vulnerable place. We. We had been in New York and we. We all had our place in New York. You know, we were doing Largo, we were doing the clubs.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

New York was Luna Lounge.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Luna Lounge. We. We both had shows on mtv.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, that's right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

We were doing Comedy Central standups. But we're. But then we moved to la and I mean, it's like we're starting all.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Over again in many ways. I remember going to a. We tried. We went to open mic. Oh, yeah. Was it at the Roosevelt Hotel? Yeah. Roosevelt. You're performing near the fountain in the Roosevelt Hotel. Bamford. On the show. Someone asked us, are you gonna. You gotta sign up for the open mic. We're like, open mic. We were doing, like, Stand Up New York and Comic Strip. Oh, my God. Gotham and Catch a Rising Star. We're doing all these shows. I'm like, okay, we now have to sign up for an open mic. Like, no way. And then Maria Bamford, we saw that she was on and we were a huge fan of hers and she had signed up for it. We're like, oh, we can do this. And she was great, and we were great. And then it took a little while. We got past the store.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

First. And it was just.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But those brunches were nice because people had told me when I moved to la, if somebody lives on the east side of LA and you're on the west side, you literally will see them once every six months.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And I was just seeing you guys all the time. So I decided that I was going to have Sunday brunch. It started doing during football season that's right. And me and Aaron had just married, and we had this.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We had waffle makers.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Waffle, yes. So we just would crank waffles. And it was like, Lisa Langang, Nick Swartz, and Zach Alifanakis. Mike Gibbons, Karen Kilgarrett, Kevin Meaney. Kevin Meaney.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Did Mike Royce ever come to one of those?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely came. We had all moved out within a year.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right. And you guys were in the Santa Monica. You. It was Santa Monica.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right. And we would. We would have brunch. We'd watch football. And I remember, like, in the fall, it would. Then nobody wanted to leave. We'd end up watching baseball that night.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's how lonely. No, no. You guys were so generous. And I always saw you guys as like, oh, yeah, you're mature. You and Aaron, like, you guys were, like, a step ahead of, like, me and Amy. Well, you hadn't had kids yet, but still looked up to you. You guys were like a family unit. You were that one step ahead, and it was great. Those were really wonderful, and those kept us connected in so many great ways. But, yeah, I mean, it is remarkable that we still see each other as we do this thing. And every time I see you do stand up, I'm always like, God damn it. I love how honest you about everything on stage. I absolutely love it.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Thank you.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. I mean, Randy and I were saying as we were preparing to come do this show. We're like, there are very few people who have bits that have stayed with us for 35. You looking at your grandmother and blowing her hair like a dandelion milkweed. To me, that's like, I put that frame it, put it in a museum, put it in the Smithsonian. That is classic. But I'm like, that bit would Number one, we're like, it's so specific. Two, it is so funny. Three, everyone in the audience always laugh. That was always a killer bit.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I think that the thing about the bit that worked is, well, the bit was that my grandmother's hair is thinning.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Thinning.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And it's gray and thinning, and she looks like a dandelion whenever I see her. I get her in a headlock and then I blow her hair like a dandelion.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And you would just go.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But I think the key to the bit is the headline.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

It just. I loved it. I mean, and New York audiences loved it. And it was. It was just. And that was the other thing about you back then, which was really inspirational for us, is that you really did material. Like, there were two Types of comics. In New York, there were comics who would come on stage and kind of go after the audience and come with the energy and do this. That. Not that you didn't have energy, but you came and you did jokes, you did bits that you wrote. It was about the writing. So for us, we're like, we have to write. We have to write. We have to write stuff. Like you got to write good jokes that work everywhere. It works in New York, it works in la, it works here, it works in Boston. I think we came and saw you in Boston. You and Jeff Ross were doing a thing at bu, right? We were. Were we on that show? We came to the show, but like in dc, we did a thing with you at the Kennedy Center. So, like.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's right.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We've been around this country and all the bits just worked everywhere.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Well, and I think when I think of your guys bits, I think about how people were, including myself, work so piecemeal. Like, here's a funny Dandelion joke and then the next one's about getting my oil changed and it's all over. And you guys do these like, set pieces.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Bits you do.

[The Sklar Brothers]

No, they're chunks.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Like a chunk.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, it's a big meaty.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

It's like a song. I mean, that's what people said. It's like a three minute or four minute song.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Ario Speedwagon. Are you kidding me?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That was.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I mean, that. That was ridiculous.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So silly.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Over the top, annihilated every time.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, but just also, that was your.

[The Sklar Brothers]

We Are the World.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, that was our We Are the World. That was for Meanie Rip.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Did you guys ever pull that one out?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

No, no. God, no. No, no.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But here's the thing about Stand up and I lament this. The comics that we saw, because, you know, remember the Friars Club in New York and you have all those borsch belt comics like Freddie Roman.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And those guys.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Alan King.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Alan King. They never did tv. And so they just kept working the.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Old bit, same routine over and over.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And they'd cycle old stuff back and forth and like, there's a part of me that's like. I love like when you just said that Dandelion. But I was like, do that.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Do it again.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Do it. Why is it that we're not allowed to do that?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You are. I mean, I always say comics and bands are the opposites. When you go ways, you're a fan and you go to see your favorite band.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And they say, I'm gonna play the new album front to come get out of here. If you're a comic and you utter like. And you have fans there and you utter one phrase that you've uttered before, you'll come out to the line where people are afterwards, they're like, you know, I wish you would do all new. And you're like, what are you saying? I know it was one phrase. So it's the. It's the exact opposite. They just want to see the new stuff. Kimmy. New. New. New.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah. But then you got a guy like Bobby Lee who I don't think writes a ton, but his bits are so. They're such act out bits.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And they're so performative.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That I really don't get sick of watching.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, I could watch it. So what Bobby's figured out with the podcast too, is that his. And I think he's brought a lot of what he does on his podcasts. Plural.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Onto the stage. And like, now people are coming who have seen him and understand the full context of who he is. And like, he can just be himself on stage.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Well, that's the beauty of the podcast stand up combo is that normally if you're. Because look, if I play, I just played three improvs in three weekends where I did Raleigh, North Carolina, I did Nyack, New York, and I did Milwaukee.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Nice.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And the thing is, like, you know, Milwaukee's like. They're like 500 seats. I'm doing five shows. I'm not selling 25.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Or. No, you're not.

[The Sklar Brothers]

So they end up getting people coming in because they market really well and they. And. And, you know, they. I was. I was selling out shows, but half the people didn't know who I was.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right. So you got to earn it.

[The Sklar Brothers]

So you gotta earn it as opposed to you do a smaller show and you don't have to say, you know, I like feet. They just know I like feet because they listen to the podcast and now I go right into the joke.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You know, and it's the same thing with you guys and your relationship and your rhythm. Like, they're already attuned to it and it's almost like a primer for the stand up.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I mean, the worst. Jim, what's happening? The worst thing is when you go into a city and people see you and they're like, hey, what are you guys doing here?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, I know.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Not marketing our show. We did not do that. Right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's the thing is I see, like when I see these people come out at the, at the improvs and they see me and they go, I loved you. You were great on I love the 80s. That person did not find out about the show from me. No, but the improv sent out last and they said, oh, yeah, I know that guy from. I'll go to the show.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I'm okay with that. If the. If.

[The Sklar Brothers]

No, my point is, why aren't I reaching those same people?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Because for your podcast, we have enough passive fans. Because we've done so. I love the 80s and all that stuff. Like, people see that it's. It's enough for them to go, oh, good, I'd like to see. As opposed to. If they were to market a guy who's brand new, they're not going to get the same response from that passive crowd.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, but why can't we reach that passive crowd?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's what we need to figure out.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's like, that's. This is all part of the thing, you know, we all got into comedy to be mid level marketers.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Exactly. I know.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You know, listen, it's going to wear.

[The Sklar Brothers]

A V neck and a Orvis.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Orvis vest. Orvis vest. We, we were just down in La Jolla doing the Comedy Store. First time we've ever done it. I mean, we.

[The Sklar Brothers]

So much fun.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So much fun. Unbelievable. The best room. And we were like. And with room to grow the next time we come down there. But, like, we were super happy with how many tickets we sold. Super happy with the deal. Love the audiences.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You can walk away with some money.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, the crowds were great. I was like, I love this. And then the vibe was great. Exact opposite of the American Comedy Company Downtown, which. We've had some good shows there.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Fuck that place.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

But I'm just saying, like, I'm saying we've had some good shows, but that area of San Diego is just a giant mess. It is like a drunk. It is like being inside of a drunk girl's vagina.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It's called the Lamp Light District.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Gas lamp.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh, it's. It's what? When you think of San Diego, you think of physical beauty and human waste. Like, it's just a bunch of white yuppie people.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Go down to San Diego. This is my theory about San Diego. People go down to San Diego to just. They're like, tune out. Don't tell me about anything. I don't want to read books.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yes.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I don't want to know what's going on in the world. Don't tell me anything. I'm down here to retire. I maybe have seen too much shit in the military. I'm down here. And I'm like, don't tell me about anything. It's a very chill place. But our joke was there's a very thin line between super chill and lazy, right? Yes. And San Diego, sometimes you cross that line. Like flip flops. Chill. Flip flops at a funeral. Lazy. That's lazy. I don't care if it's a burial at sea, you show your God. Open casket.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Fine.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Open toe. I don't like it.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right. Yeah. Walking around with your shirt off. Chill. Walking around with your shirt off at 60 with no sunblock, and now you.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Have a sunburn at a custody hearing. Not good.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And so we're like, you know, just. Even the name Ocean beach to us was hilarious.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Hanging out on your sailboat. Chill.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Chill.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Living on it.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Where were we? Where were you? That's the other thing. So our joke was. Our joke was Ocean Beach. Laziest name for a beach ever. Ocean Beach. Why is it called Ocean Beach? Because it's by the ocean. Every beach is by the ocean. Every beach is by the ocean. And then our joke was Sandy Beach. Taken. Was Beach Beach. Not taken, was another example that we would have thought up. But we've been hanging out in San Diego so much that we've gotten lazy. That's such a swimming.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Even the seals, they don't even swim. The seals just lay around. You know, a chill seal.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We're adding this.

[The Sklar Brothers]

We're adding this chill seal, you know, cruises around the harbor.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. This guy just lay on rocks. Like, there are seals that balance balls on their noses.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right. That's a chill.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Like, I came down to San Diego to do nothing.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Don't make me balance a ball.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I'm retired.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

This isn't the circus.

[The Sklar Brothers]

In San Diego, I was a Marine seal. I've been to Afghanistan.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's a good one. No, I think it's pretty dry in Afghanistan. I was a SEAL in Afghanistan. And then I was like, did seal Heidi Klum's ex husband fight in Afghanistan? I don't remember. But anyway, is that how he got this grant? All right, I'm done. So, I mean, we. It was from, you know, we. We had a wonderful time down there. Our first time down there, I'm like, oh, we will.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But those are people that all know you.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, there was. A majority of them were excited that we were there.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yes.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And. And. And came to see us. And as a result, you know, you have that. You know, there's. The shows were fun. Our early show Friday, which typically early show Friday, they're a little Tight.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Late show, they're drunk because they don't know how. They worked all day. They're exhausted. Early show Friday can be good, but sometimes they're a little tight. Was maybe one of our favorite sets that like in recent memory that we did that was like. We got up there, we got into it, we're doing our stuff and you kind of know where your set's going, you know when it's like about to land. And I was like, we're here already. I can't believe we're here already. It was just, it was joyful.

[The Sklar Brothers]

My niece is a waitress there. I got her a job as a waitress.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She's from New York and she graduated college and then she moved out and I got her a job as a waitress. And it's like, who is it?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

What's her name? Do we meet her?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Julia Gale. She's. She's very attractive and she's very outgoing.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And she was a big hit. She got to the club and her whole social life is everybody there. And she just talks about, they're nice people.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

They're fucking great people. Anyway, it was super nice down there and beautiful. And we're like, we got down there, we drove down there and we're. And we said, this is what a stand up weekend should be. They put you in a hotel, you're hanging out down there.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Sea view hotel. It's like a cool old.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. Oh my God, I love it. The old hotel, which is like not too nice. Not bad. Not. It's in the middle.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And again, sea view. Yeah, it. It's next to the ocean, obviously.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Got a view of the sea view. Get more creative. And we played a little golf and we.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You did.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We did a couple rounds up to Encinita Hills and you played another round. But I had to drive back up because my younger daughter got into college. Like she was like found out. She literally. I started driving up and she's like, the email's here. So I literally drove from La Jolla up to her school in Eagle Rock, picked her up early from school. We went home, opened up the email, all of us together. And then she got in and I.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Wait, was that the clip I saw on the Internet?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

She got in, I dropped right back down.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's such a cool clip.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Joyful clip. Yeah, that's joyful moment. We don't show a ton. We're not like, we don't pimp our. Certainly our kids. Cause they're older. As you don't really either. But like that was a moment that I'm like, our fans would love to see this.

[The Sklar Brothers]

No, I remember the moment when my daughter said that she hates school and maybe she'll take a couple classes at Santa Monica College.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I remember you posted that.

[The Sklar Brothers]

We all huddled, gathered around her.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

My daughter could still get there. So God willing to see her put down the crackpipe. But the five minutes, the truth to let us take this. This is what I've realized, certainly from her, is like, we're trying to get her to the finish line of school. Like, it's not for everybody. Like, this path and this thing. That's what I learned. And you learn that about your kids. It's like, this. The path you think is going to be the path. Like, your kid might just be like, f school. I hate it so much. Some of the smartest people I know never went to college or did a year of college.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It took me a year to wrap my head around that. And then I realized she struggled through high school. She's got adhd. She's got everything. And until she finds out what she's passionate about, it doesn't make sense for.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Her to continue down this path.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She doesn't. She doesn't enjoy it enough or feel like. Like, I went to college. I wanted to. I took a year off after high school. I traveled around the world, by the way, that's.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So who told you to do that?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Well, I didn't think I'd ever go to college to be perfectly.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Want to be a comic.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I want to be a writer. I wanted to write novels.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Okay?

[The Sklar Brothers]

And so I said, let me. Not. Let me. I'm not going to school. And so I. I worked for six months as I was a parking attendant at a country club and a cook at TGI Fridays.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Amazing.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Two jobs I saved up ready for this $3,000, which at the time is.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Like, enough to travel for. Like, if you were to do it today, that'd be like $30,000.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

So I get a backpack and I hitchhike around. I stay. I find a spot in Ireland where my grandfather was born.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right. And.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And I rent a little cottage, and I wrote a book. I wrote a novel. And I fell in love with this bartender at the Atlantic Pub in Kenmare. And I dedicated it to her. And it was in a thick notebook. You know, it was like 150 pages. And I was. Every night, I would write all day, and then I'd go to the pub and I'd flirt with her.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, my God.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And I think I kissed her a couple times. It Was like nothing but dark red hair and green eyes and pasty white skin.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Can you still get together with me accent?

[The Sklar Brothers]

No, I'll tell you the follow up. So anyway, I give it. I give it to her and she told me it was brilliant the next day. And I didn't realize in Ireland people can say, like, your bike is brilliant.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Like, it's a. Yeah, like, those shorts are brilliant. It's not raining today. Brilliant.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Brilliant. Yeah. And so anyway, she kept it.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

At least she didn't say, I moved.

[The Sklar Brothers]

On to the next town. And I left my first novel with this woman. And I came.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

No backup? No backup, no backup.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I came back 10 years later, I went to the Atlantic Pub and I asked for her and. And I was with my wife.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, maybe not. Great moment, great moment.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Said she's up in Belfast.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

What did you tell your wife? Who? This person?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh, no, I told her.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You told everything?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now she's got her past, too.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Like, this is a friend I used. Yeah, yeah. She gave me a kidney. I forgot to say that. And that's. I owe her this visit.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She gave me 2000 pints of Guinness and a kidney.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And then as they're going to get her, you just whisper to your wife at the bar, I'm still not over. Hey. Kind of not hey.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But she was getting married that weekend when I. When I went to the Atlantic.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

The weekend you came back.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She was still working at the pub. She would have been there. Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Wow. Yeah, it's amazing.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Who was your first love? Did you ever say I love you to anybody besides your wife?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. Yeah. High school.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Is there one that stays with you? Like, I had a girlfriend from college that I still think about. Like, she was really. She was a good person.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

There were. Yeah, there were a lot. I dated good people. There were a bunch. I mean, not that I think about on a daily basis or even in a. Like, periodically. But yeah, if I sit down and go, the people I was lucky enough to be with along the way. Yeah, some great one. Camp. Camp Rama, which is a Jewish summer camp. Like, yes. Girlfriends from that and. And Israel trips and other, like, summer programs were really where I feel like we ended up connecting because we liked our high school. We definitely liked our high school. We went to high school in like, a white trash part of St. Louis. St. Louis.

[The Sklar Brothers]

White trash?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. It was more like our school colors were acid and wash. Thank you. That makes sense. We had. We had a smoking lounge. Did you have a smoking lounge in your.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

High school. Not for the teachers, for the students.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It was. There was an alley behind the.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

This is a lounge loading dock. Indoors. Outside. Right outside. Like an atrium outside.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Where just kids who are like, yeah, I gotta climb the rope next period.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, that's hilarious.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And it's like smoking out. And we'd be looking out there, we'd be like, we know she shouldn't be smoking because she's pregnant. But, I mean, like, that's. So that was the high school we went to, and we loved it. And, like, kind of the honor students at our school were really smart and really cool, and our creative people, the people we, like, connected with, who we would, like, share our dream. Because we were already wanting to do comedy.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Were you doing theater?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We did a theater, and then we did stand up in high school.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You did high school?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We were doing stand up 86. 86 was the first time we stepped on a stage. We did a local comedy club. Like, we did it our senior year. Like, we really were, like, dialed into this whole other thing that our high school friends could not. Because St. Louis is a town, you know, where. And was when our parents. When our dad grew up there. Where you grow up there. Maybe you go to Mizzou, maybe you go to ku, maybe you go to Illinois, and then you come back. Well, we say that. I mean, the Joe. Our joke when we go back and do stand up in St. Louis is that. What high school did you go to? Is a pickup line in St. Louis. What high school? And no other city is it, like, what high school did you go to? It's so they can make a snap judgment about you. Like, do high school. I can get cocaine from this. Okay, this, that. That we said. What high school did you go to as a pickup line? St. Louis. What high school do you go to as a pickup line for Matt Gaetz? There you go.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Hold it. I can't believe you didn't hold it long.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I wanted to hold it. Where's my congress? All right, so. No, but that. That is. It's provincial in that way that people. It's very much like, this is where we're from, and this is where we stay. So we've met creative people, like, through Jewish youth groups and summer camp.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I heard these. These Israel Chip trips, people.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Madness. It was madness touring around. It's basically like a guided tour around the country with a bunch of young Fine.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Cool. That's where we met Eric Friedman. Eric Freeman on the issue trip in high school. Yeah, he met him, and we were, like, immediately drawn to him. Because we're like, oh, this guy's so funny. And we just. The three of us were like. And then, like, all of our friends and all of his friends, and then we had all these friends. It was like a network of friends around the country. And then this, like, these cool girls from Canada, like, they were so cool. And it was like, you literally say, I literally had a Canadian girlfriend, and.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You wouldn't be like, she wasn't fictitious from camp. She was real Canadian girlfriend from camp.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

It's like, everything about it sounds like. But it was real. Yeah, I loved her. She was so. And you go into those. Those.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And everyone's Jewish.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Everyone's Jewish.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And do they have classes at the thing for running the media or banks?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

No, they just choice. No, you automatically go into that. And they. They don't. They assume. You just know.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right, right, right. You learn a couple handshakes.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Is that a great moment when we realize, like, in our lives, like, we knew the Nazis and the far right hated us, and now the far left hate hates us as well. So now we can say, hey, we're. We're bringing these two sides together. Like, we've given you common ground. You're welcome, bitches. Common ground. You all hate us. Take it and run. So, I mean. But yes, it was one of those moments where you're like, oh, these. That's where we met other people who were creative. That's where we would, like, you know, for us back then, we'd have friends in Kansas City or Minneapolis or wherever. And this is before the Internet, before FaceTime, before, you know, anything. But we'd send. We'd make, like, funny sketches on a tape, and we'd mail it to them.

[The Sklar Brothers]

On a VHS tape.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

On an audio tape, and then they would send a VHS tape back. And then it was, like, sort of com. Like, we had friends that were video videographers for bat mitzvahs and weddings and weddings in Kansas City. And, like, they'd have people at the wedding, you know, record messages for the, like, is there anything you want to say to the bat mitzer or the bride and groom? And that's like, congratulations, we're so happy. And then get, like, an old Jewish couple to say. Say this to our friends. And so, like, we'd have a list of, like, old Jewish couples being like, randy, quit playing with yourself or whatever. Like, so funny. And, like, I'm like, well, when you.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Guys first got to New York, you were doing video stuff, weren't you? Didn't you guys, like, have, like, Little underground kind of stuff.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, we were shooting stuff like that. Yes, we did. We did do stuff like that. We were like of the mindset, luckily, thankfully. And we tell new people this all the time who are like, how do I get into comedy? We're like, you gotta make stuff. You just.

[The Sklar Brothers]

How do I get into comedy? You do comedy.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You do comedy.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It's literally like people today that, you know, I get friends that go, oh, I got the. My, my friends. My. My friend's nephew starting comedy and he wants to, you know, meet for coffee and pick your brain. I go, pick my brain. Get on YouTube. What do you want to pick my. I mean, pick my brain. So there are a million 68 year old guy. What am I going to tell you about getting it to comedy?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

What? You can't. What you can't. There's things you can't tell them because there are people who are ridiculously successful just, you know, on Tick Tock or they become. There are a million ways you can do it. More ways than what we tell. We tell people. The industry will let you know.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Like you just start doing the thing that you think is the funniest thing.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Because there's money to be made.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Sure. Young comedians and if you're good.

[The Sklar Brothers]

This one kid, somebody wanted to meet me with him. So I look him up on Instagram. The kid's got 600,000 followers. I got a hundred. You want to, you want to pick my brain? Let me pick your brain.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, because they're like, how. Yeah, that's right. You could pick the brain about, about that. But you know, I mean, it is miraculous. We say the miracle is that we're still enjoying working in this industry. That is the miracle.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Because I think that's what they're really asking is like, how do I sustain a career in something like this? I mean it's.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Well, that's also. That's your parents. They either gave you a work ethic, like my father taught me, because he was in radio and he would. He had years where he didn't work. Like literally in high school, he had like two years high school.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You're ready to go?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Were you guys. Was your family panicked in those moments or did he.

[The Sklar Brothers]

They never showed it if they did.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

But so he got, he was let go from one radio job and you're waiting to find another. And he didn't want to move you around the country because he probably had like Wichita is gonna.

[The Sklar Brothers]

No, because he also did TV commercials. So he had to stay in New York. He would make the radio turned into a showcase for his voice to do voiceovers for commercials. He would literally not audition. They would just say, oh, we want Bob Fitzsimmons, because he's got the soft, female friendly voice that we like.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But anyway, just like you, you know, but he. He. But he. But he would smoke three and a half packs a day, so he had a little bit of a. Gravel.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Gravel in there. Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But he, you know, he taught me that if you're going to go into this career where there's going to be down times, save your money, invest it wisely. Spend less than you make. Buy real estate, put your money in stocks. Like, he had yellow notebooks filled before computers filled with, you know, quotes on his stocks every month.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I mean, that is amazing that your dad was in a business that is, I would say, adjacent to or connect to our business. That is miraculous.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Well, we're sitting in front of microphone.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I know. We are, we are. And like, I think about that time when you were on Howard Stern, like, they were testing out who's going to be like, Jackie and you were on there. And I was like, to me, that must have been a full circle moment for you, given the fact that your dad was probably going to that in New York to go in.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Well, the crazy thing is Howard used to shit on my dad in New York. He. That was his thing. He would shit on all the other announcers. So he used to. My father used to host the Jerry Lewis telethon at it. He was the New York host for it. And so you go, oh, you got to be some kind of a. Has been to be hosting a telethon. Fitzsimmons is washed up. And so he said all this horrible shit about my dad, and my mom hated him. Of course, my dad kind of got it. He knew what he was doing. But they had the same agent. They both had Don Buchwald as their agent. Yeah. And. And Don. Don Buckwald, my father, was his first client. My father introduced Don to all the different station managers in New York. He got him started in radio, got him his first clients, all that stuff. So they were like this.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And he just died, God bless him, six months ago. But. Oh. So anyway, so when I was about to go on Stern, I was like, they. The first time I went on, I. I had won the. The Aspen Comedy Festival. I got some trophy.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And so they said, well, this guy's kind of on the radar now. Let's bring him in. So they invite me to come in, and I'm like, What the. Am I being set up here?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

So I'm going in on a Monday. I listened to the show on Friday, and he had the week off the week before. So they were playing reruns on the rerun. It's him on my phone.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

No way. Did they. Did they know that?

[The Sklar Brothers]

I'll never know. But I went in on Monday, and now I got my fist clenched. I'm ready. I got. I got plenty of. To say to start. And he comes on and he goes, greg, I just got to tell you something. Your father was one of the great guys in this. In an industry where people are not well liked. Everybody loved your father. He goes, he taught me so much about how to enter. He just went on his love song with my dad.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Did you tell it? Did you play that for your mom? Did she get to hear.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She listened.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Okay.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She listened.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So then maybe that helped.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She never got over. No, no, no, no. Yeah. Irish broads, they never get over. But then.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And then boiling a potato, being like, I'm g them up.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Just like the woman never got over your novel. But anyway, she's marrying another guy with a novel on the back of her dress.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Have you ever done material? Because Kevin Meaney's advice to me was, do an act you can do in front of your mother. And I was always like, I can't do that. But you guys, you seem like you probably.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

There's a lot. There's a lot that we can do in front of our mom. There's a lot, and there's a lot that she. But by the same token, we're always like, we got to. We want to push it. So, example, in next Tuesday, we're hosting the VES Awards.

[The Sklar Brothers]

The. You're right. The visual effects. I saw that.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. So, I mean, it's 1200 people at the Beverly Hilton. It's like studio heads. I had to, like, buy a tuxedo because my. Yeah, I'm spending the money I'm making on a tuxedo.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, smart.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You guys should be paying us more. But nonetheless, we're doing this show, and we're, like, writing. So we said, okay, here's. Here's the monologue.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I mean, like, dude, send it to me. I'll punch it up.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Okay, great. So. So we wrote. And. And the. The thing is, the person who is the head of Ves is like, an extraordinarily sensitive person. It's like the worst setup for comedy. I get it. Like, she gets all the complaints, and she gets probably a ton and probably gets a Ton from these people who.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Wait, is she the CEO or she's the one who hired you?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So she's the CEO. The group that hired us is the producers of this show and they like Robin Reinhardt. Robin Reinhardt is part of it. She's part of it. VH1. So she's wonderful. I love Robin. Robin's the best. We've hosted, like the Critics Choice Award reality show. We've done a decent job for them before. So we're like pitching. These are the jokes and. And like, they're coming back like, this is. Can't say this. And what I realized is.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh, you had to screen the jokes, by the way.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Well, we. Well, we also had. The Last time we hosted the real TV Awards, we wrote all these. The first time we did it was great, and everything was great. The most recent time we did it. When did we had Megan Gailey? You know, Megan Gailey, great, great comic and great, like, writer and whatnot. She's written on the ESPYs and written a bunch of things. We said, do you want to come and just help us, like, write some stuff? And she said, we paid her and it was great. It was awesome. But we wrote a lot of stuff and we, like went in on these. I mean, we went in hard on these people and the jokes were really funny, but we didn't realize we're making jokes out to people who are on reality TV shows. These are like, people who are on reality TV shows. They don't watch the other shows. They're so self indulgent. They're also like, so set. Like, they think that they're superstars. So it was like, so people did not, like, we. These jokes weren't getting what we thought they should be getting. So, so much so. And we did a bit. We wrote like such a crazy bit. I don't even why we did this. Our friend Brad Morris came on as, like, he was like a new PR guy for. For the worst guy on a reality show. Tom Sandoval. Tom Sandoval. Who's on Vanderpump? Vanderpump rules. Like, everybody hates him. Everybody. He's like, I'm his new PR guy. And we're like, what is your name? Like, David Hitler? We're like, that can't be your name. He's like, I'm taking the heat off of him. He's like, it's working. It's totally working. See you guys later. Don't raise your hand. They did not like it. Like, a table full of like, America's Next Top Drag Queen. Like, they were not psyched about that. They did not like it. So much so that someone came on stage and was like, I don't know what was going on with that bit. You know, whatever. Like, someone else. Like, Like, I'm hosting this next year. And we're like, no one else.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Meanwhile, these people are corroding the fabric of society. Garbage. Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I'm hosting it next year. We're like, you'll fail, but you don't understand. So because of that experience, we are coming into this bigger experience where it's like 1200 people. We don't want to do what we want to do, just to do what.

[The Sklar Brothers]

We'Re like, you want to bounce it off?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We want to succeed. I don't want to.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So, like, there. So we. So we literally, this is. The younger versions of us would, you know, be like, you can't tell us what we can say and what we can't say. We're comedians. Don't you dare give us notes on our stuff. The older, more seasoned versions of us set a zoom call with them yesterday, and we said, okay, guys, this is where we're at, and this is where our heads are at, and this is it. We know this stuff that we're saying. Like, that, hey, we're the perfect guys to be hosting the show right now. We're in 2025, just two old white guys. We're not even the same. We're not even two old white guys. We're the same white guy twice. Like, that says that. Whatever. The know that these jokes, where we do them on stage, they work. So we're taking stuff from that we've done in every. But we also know that you know your audience better than us. And so if you're. I want to talk about these things and why you're saying, don't do this. And, like, maybe there's a version that we can do. And we had a very mature conversation with them, and they. They helped us, and they're now on our side.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And it was, like, such a better way to handle it. The young version of us would have come in like, what? You don't know what you know, and.

[The Sklar Brothers]

So sabotage more situations. My problem with authority, I mean, I just have gone so out of my way to buck notes.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

But to what end?

[The Sklar Brothers]

But I know. I know I. Till the end that, like, corporate bookers don't work with me anymore because I would go in our.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

What? My wife was, like, getting all mad that, like, they're telling us that we can't say this and that on the things. And I was like, that's not the point. Like, we. And we told them, look, here's what we're grappling with. We want to do something that we feel like doesn't embarrass you and certainly doesn't make the crowd. Like, we don't want it to fail because it's too edgy.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

But at the same time, we're standing up there and it's us. If we say something that's rounded edge, not as funny, we're gonna. We're gonna pay the price for it. So that's what we're dealing with. And like, to actually bring that out to them and say, let's try and figure this out together was part of.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It is, you know, like, obviously you guys have a voice You've honed for.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

35 years, but Tom Cruise is not here tonight, which is a bummer because apparently he does all of his own visual effects. I like that joke. He doesn't get it. He does all of his own. Do you guys get it? He does all of his own stunts. Yeah. Greg doesn't like it. So that's scrapped. Will Smith is not here tonight, which is good for us as comedians on stage.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, that's good. Can I be on the next Zoom Call?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. It would have been two on one. It would have been two on one, though. It's not here. He's actually remodeling the house on his son's head. You saw that on the Grammys. His son is the only kid who's on Instagram. Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and now Zillow.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's good joke. I like that a lot.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And we did a joke about. We have a joke about. And so this was one that we fought on. Okay. We had a joke about Inside Out. Inside out, you know that movie. Your kids are too old now to watch it, but Inside out is a very, very, very successful Pixar movie where they take, like, inside emotions.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Like Lewis Black.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

He's amazing. Louis Richard Kind played a guy. Black plays anger. Amy plays Joy. It's a beautiful, very introspective view inside of, like, there's a story of a kid, like, a young girl who's, like, playing hockey, and it's all inside of her brain.

[The Sklar Brothers]

A little bit borrowed from Big Mouth, isn't it?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

This came. I think the first Big Mouth came. First Big mouth came before.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yes.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Possible.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yes.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Okay.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

But a little. Might have been developing it for a while. Yeah. I mean, I. I don't know how long they were working on this, but it. It was. It's a really, really great idea. So our joke was that it's nominated tonight, but there's a new. There's a new emotion that was put into this year's thing that's up for an award. Anxiety. We're like, Randy and I got a hold of a list of emotions that were. That reject. These are rejected emotions. These are the emotions. That's like a Letterman bit. So of all the emotions. Yeah, Paul, I'm. Of all the emotions. These are the roasters. Paul, we just said that. All right, so we said one of our emotions that we picked. Sarcasm. Sarcasm were like, they wanted to be in it, but based on tone, they thought they didn't want to, so they were fired. Gaslighting was hired, then didn't show up, then blame the film. And you're like, why is it the film's fault? That's not cool. And then the last one we had was performance anxiety, which obviously, it's a kid's movie. We can't have that in the thing, so. But then we went further on that our joke was like, you know, and look, it's. It happens to a lot of guys, and we, as. From our experience, as we've been told, it's. It's a normal thing that happens to a lot of guys. Like, we just kept going, and they're like, you can't keep going. No, no. They said you can't do it. And we're like, what if we cut it shorter? What if we just cut this shorter and just said, performance anxiety. It's a kids movie, obvious reasons. And they're like, I think I said couldn't get up for the role. I think that was my thing.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Okay.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And they didn't like that. And I'm like, wow. So.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But that's when you do it.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I mean, maybe we'll do that.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, maybe we do it.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Maybe we do all.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You have to go 10 pass.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You feel the room, and you go.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And you push it. We also, like, now, that's an interesting question. When you say feel the room, are you guys that in sync that you are making joke choices on the fly together?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Absolutely. Or we just trust. We trust the other person. And what we have, which is great, which other comics don't have, is if he decides to push a button and goes too far and the crowd doesn't like it, I can be like, good call to push the envelope on that one. Rand, my brother, who doesn't know where the line Is. And so then it becomes a battle between the two of us. They can laugh at that. We give them permission to laugh at that. At me berating him for making a bad decision.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Is Randy usually the one that pushes it further?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I don't think. No, we both. We've both. Yeah, we both crossed the line and things haven't worked. And you're like, okay, way to go, Jay. Yeah, good call. Great call. These people are really happy that you made that joke.

[The Sklar Brothers]

My favorite is when you guys walk on stage and you go, we're Jason or Randy. We identify as us. We as they.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Them.

[The Sklar Brothers]

They, them.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So we're going to do that. We're going to do that. So. So here's. So we said we identify as they themselves, but only when we're on stage together. The sad part is we get paid like a he. Right. The other half of the joke is sometimes we get paid like a she. And that's not that we get paid like a she, but there's a gender pay gap at all. Let's be honest, you guys. Come on, raise the floor a little bit. Okay, whatever.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I had a joke. So this is true that, you know, they're. They're putting a woman's face on the 20 bill. They're finally going to put a woman's face on, which is great news for women. Bad news for the 20 bill. Now it's only going to be worth 17.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's so good. That's great.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It's no dandelion joke, but it's bad news for money. All right, a couple things I want to ask you about. Yeah. Are you. What's this. What we do in the shadows. You guys are on that show.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. So we.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I mean, that's huge.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Huge. So fun. Last season. So the fifth season was the final season. Season four, we get this audition, it comes to us, and we're like, was this. This is so good. Was this written for us? It's, like, so well written.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Is it for twins?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

It was. It was for. It was for twins. And it was like a Property Brothers type thing where they come to the vampire house to.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh, that's great. Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

But it shot like an HGTV reality show. Not like they're dark writer. There's like, lower thirds of, like, other shows that don't exist. And it's like they shot a whole promo. So we. So we do it, and my daughter, who's at Michigan right now, who's wants to be a director, I'm like, will you shoot us doing the audition? Like, we have self tape here and we. Paul Sims. You know Paul Sims? You ever work with him? So he's like the showrunner on there.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Gary Shandling.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, I mean Shanley Shanling, Frazier. I mean Atlanta. I mean, he's unbelievable. Unbelievable. So good. So. So he's like, so comes in and we shoot it. And Daisy was like, okay, try this. She's giving a couple of notes on how to do it and they were great. We actually use them. And she shot it really well and we sent it off and then we didn't hear anything for a few weeks. And we're just like, we really want this. We love this show so much. We really, really want that. Who else is going to do this? I mean, maybe they get the actual property brothers, but yeah, there's got to be more in the script and in the very beginning. We don't know. Spoiler alerts. Should we give it. I mean, I think we can. It was just the very beginning of the thing. And like at the very beginning, his we. The way we divided it up, the way it just felt right. His character like gets killed. Which you're like, oh, you'll come back as a vampire. Yeah, that's what it does. Got bit by a vampire. I'm like, I'm coming back. I'll be a vampire. This is amazing. Then you get into the show, you get up there and then like his character is just dead. So my character then like I try and redo the whole house. Like redo the house, but befriend Matt Berry's character. And so there's. And then there's like a crazy turn at the very end. I don't want to give away that like that I'm not who I am. I become someone else. And I've been someone else all along. And so the point is, it was like the best exercise ever because the more of a good friend I am to Matt Berry, the shittier it is when it turns at the end. So we're improvising all this stuff and these guys are great.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Improvise while filming or while filming her.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, so you do the lines and you do what you're supposed to do. And they're like, then the director y Diana Gorskaya, who's amazing, who's like take a Waititi's right hand person edited all of his movies. So like she's an unbelievable director. Like one of the best directors we've ever. Classy, knows the stuff, comedy, laughs, just gives it up. She's just soft spoken and just perfect director. Like Perfect. And she's like, all right, let's do one. Let's just be. Let's do a fun one. And I just remember improvising one where, like, Natasha Demetrio is. Is hypnotizing me to. To not remember what I've just seen. Now that I did saw him. And she's asking you questions. Who else knows? Because there's a film crew filming it. Like, who else knows you're here? Who's gonna see this footage? And I'm just like, I'm just gonna keep going. I was. I just seen the Anthony Bourdain documentary where his, like, girlfriend, who was his wife, was giving notes on the edit of, like, the. Of, you know, parts unknown. And, like, people were so fucking mad. So I'm like, there's a girlfriend of one of the. I'm in. Girlfriend of one of the producers who gets to see some of the edits. One time, someone, A kid flew a kite into the attic that we were shooting at. And now that kid gives his feedback on some of the cuts. I mean, it was just going on and no one was saying cut. I'm like, I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep going. And I'm like, ah, this shit's not gonna get in. And all of it got in. No, they just were great. And the whole experience. Great. We were up there for. You were up there for three weeks. Three weeks. I was up there for a whole month in Toronto.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Toronto.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And they, you know, they shot a bunch of stuff. Like our show is like a fake show, which is so funny. They shot like, a producer. Our show that we had as leads, like Property Brothers, was called Go Flip Yourself. So it's like a house living show. And then they did scenes and stuff. And so then they dropped little scene that characters from their show were watching our show throughout, and the crew of their show was watching our show and betting on it throughout the season. And so. So they built it to it. And then we show up. We show up.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Okay.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And so, like, in the season, in the episode before, they actually played a fake promo of our show.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That felt like it was a commercial. Like, what is this show?

[The Sklar Brothers]

I mean, that's such a good piece of tape for you guys. You know, one of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn't buy bitcoin.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

No.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Is that I didn't save all my. My clips over the years.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Onto like a hard drive and have, like a reel that. Because, I mean, the stuff you guys have done, you've been On Curb.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You've been on Better Call Saul, Better Call Saul, Entourage, Grey's Anatomy. And it's like, like, do you have all that stuff somewhere?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, we do. So we have clips. A lot of that stuff's on YouTube. You can just pull it.

[The Sklar Brothers]

But I mean, is it like on this hard drive and this DVD and some, some.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I mean, I think we had someone put everything together a few years back. You gotta find that. But yeah, yeah. I mean, think about all the early stuff.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I know how much fun that was. Do you have apartment 2F?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So Mike Royce just sent us the Dropbox with all of the apartment two Fs. So we're gonna start.

[The Sklar Brothers]

If people don't know Jason and Randy did a show called Apartment 2F on MTV in 1997.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

90 pilot was 96 and it had.

[The Sklar Brothers]

A lot of people that have since gone on to do really interesting sitcom.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

With stand up and sketch woven in short films woven in the storyline. So here are the standups on that show. Patton Oswalt, Jim Norton, arch Barker, Patrice O'Neill, Bill Burr. Those are the stand ups. And like Brian Fraser.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah. Brian Frazier, great writer.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And Jordan Rubin, great director. Jordan has my favorite, and I'll say this all the time, my favorite joke about New York, like just being in New York City cab. He's like, it's just, it's just crazy New York City cab. But that's the. Which is a premise that a lot of people have. But he's like, you know, it's just, it's just I was in the cab the other night and I said, I said here, let me out up on the left in that accident that you're in.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's good.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And he also had a bit where he was. And I did this bit with my. I took my 11 year old daughter to New York just to see some shows and eat awesome food beginning of this year. And we walked by the place where Jordan Rubin used to dj and I'm like, that place, Broome Street? Yeah. Our friend used to DJ here at a club and she was like, what is that? I'm like, it's like a dance club and all this stuff. But it was like exclusive. Like bounce in the front. They wouldn't let people. It was like Leonardo DiCaprio was staying at the so grand and would like go there. Like De Niro's in there hanging out. And, and, and Jordan's joke was the club was so exclusive. I was DJing but I wasn't allowed to be in there. So our joke is that he took the claw from, like, you know, the Korean delis where they try and get stuff on the top shelf is like a tool. And I was like, that's how you had to change the records through the door. You weren't allowed to me physically acting that out was making my daughter laugh so hard. Get the claw on the side window.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Flip the record, cut up the line of code. Long straw. Very long straw. I remember I did a show on somewhere in soho, and it was one of those gigs where somebody hits you up at the comedy seller and goes, hey, you want to make 50 bucks?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And you're like, whatever, why not?

[The Sklar Brothers]

So I go down and I walk on stage, and it's all supermodels.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And I'm single and front row is Leonardo DiCaprio.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, my God.

[The Sklar Brothers]

An impossibly young, beautiful Anorexian under 25.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We know that. That for sure.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yes. And so she's ignoring me with just a. As Kevin Meaney would say, a puss on her face.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right. You got to put. Get that puss off your face.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And so I annihilate her. Because I don't care.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right? Right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

This is my world.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, that's right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

These are people that are used to it being their world.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, yeah. Nobody ever takes shots at them.

[The Sklar Brothers]

My world, right? And I annihilate her. And he is dying.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, he loves it.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And she gets up and walks away. And he was like, hey, what do I this Eight other girls, right?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Exactly. Like, I'm not gonna even. I'm not going home empty handed. That is unbelievable. And I. We've seen you before. Like, one of our favorite things that we used to do or watch you do is the old Largo here in la, on Fairfax, across from Cantors, where you would come on last. And the first, like six minutes of your set was just ripping on everyone.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Who came before you, deconstructing everything.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

People who did well.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

But the crowd loved it. They couldn't wait for you to come up and just, like, host your review of what you had seen.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And I remember I on Odenkirk once, and he never talked to me again. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Stop.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, well, we did.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We did Better Call Saul with him, which was a blast. So fun. He was so cool. Yeah, he was so nice. We showed up on the set in. In Santa Fe or Albuquerque, and he was like, oh, you guys got this. That's great. And we hung out, and because it wasn't for twins, it wasn't even for brothers, it was just two guys who owned the amuse. And so then we're in the back and, like, while they're filming. And, like, you know how, like, you're on shows, you've been on films or TV shows where, like, they're always, like, super tight budget, so they have to shoot, like, 45 pages in one day. You're like, we're at this location till noon, and then we gotta run over here. This show was, like, so in its, like, pocket. And, like, didn't have to worry. Food was good, craft services, good.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Hbo. Every show.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

HBO was like, oh, yeah, every HBO show was like that. But this. This one also like that. Because they just. They knew they were.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh, it wasn't hbo.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

No, it was amc. Amc. But still, they were the Breaking Bad universe. It was better. So they, like, took, like, a whole day to shoot one scene. You're like, all day is for our scene. And so then you never felt the pressure to, like, do it. Right. Oh, my God. And the director, who's a writer, Tom Schnaz is the guy's name. Unbelievable. So. Such a smart guy.

[The Sklar Brothers]

How's his nose?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

It's actually normal size. Normal size. He's like, just run it. Run it with Bob. Like, run your scene. And so we're just talking quiet around. He's like, I want to hear the scene. And so they quiet the set. And he's like, just. Just talk to each other. Just talk it through a couple times. And so we're talking it through. Like, we're talking to you right now. And, like, it's no pressure whatsoever. And he's like, okay, got it. Moving on. No, just from that side.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's hilarious. That's like a premature ejaculation.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, my God. We were so happy because we had, like. Like, was it good? He was like. It was so natural. It was so good. You didn't realize we were. We're filming from up in the guitars. We have, like, a camera. Oh, my God.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's amazing. All right, it's time for fastballs with fits.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Let's do it.

[The Sklar Brothers]

When's the last time each of you apologized to somebody?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Oh, I apologize to my son recently. My son is 16. He got a new car, a nicer car than we thought he should have gotten, but he.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You bought him a new car?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Well, no. No. Releasing a car. And then he contributed enough money to make it what he wanted it to be. We were willing to put a certain amount, really bridge the gap. I liked it. So we're like, you gotta be careful. You gotta be careful. And then that was two months ago. He got the license, and then he totaled it like, a week ago. It was fine. He's fine. But my wife and I, who, you know, his fault. His fault. His fault. It was his fault. I mean, it was kind of the fault of a car that moved in front of him, then moved away. And then the car slowed down in front of him, and he tried to get around them, and he clipped the back wheel and airbags up. It was scary. But he's fine. But, like, my wife and I, when we handle it, we handle things very differently with him. And suddenly, like, once we knew he was okay, we were like, okay, now let's go in on it him. Because, like, it's. Now we're on the same page. And she's like, you gotta respect me. And I'm like, yeah, you don't respect anything. And, like, we're. I'm like, it's like Flavor Flav. I'm letting her be Chuck D. I'm like, fine with it. She's like, you gotta. You are. This is our family. It's a killing machine. And then she goes, you don't. You don't listen to what we're saying. I'm like, yeah, dummy. And she goes, you said, yeah, dummy? She's like, you can't say dummy. What is it?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Tough crowd.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Like, suddenly Rickles. So I'm like, you can't say dummy. And I'm like, he's being done. Then it became, like, five minutes on how I'm not talking right, And I was like, man, I'm out of this whole thing. But so later, after, like, I cooled down, and we realized exactly what happened. I did come to him, and I was like, man, I am sorry. I went in really hard. I went so hard. I. I really feel badly about. Yeah, I know you weren't trying to screw it up. And I know, yeah, there will be consequences. But I'm sorry about how I spoke to you. I had to.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I think my. My parents generation never did that.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Never.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I think that if nothing else, what a. What a change in parenting.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I mean, you're teaching your kid how to then say you're sorry. In other situations that happens, I always feel that way. I cannot remember what this was for, but, like, it's. I understand why our parents were that way, too, because there's a moment where someone catches you in something, namely your spouse. Like, I think my wife caught me. And, like, you were acting this way about this. And I was like, no, I was. I got very, like, no, I wasn't No, I wasn't. And I can't even remember what it was. It was tiny. But I just didn't want to own up to it in that moment. I was embarrassed that I was acting the way that I was. Cause it was stupid. And I was like. And then I just flat out said, I'm sorry. It took all of the. It was the easiest thing to do, but I just didn't want to do it for so long. And finally I was like, you know what? Fuck this. This. I'm just gonna say I'm sorry. It was such a small thing, and it just changed the tenor of everything.

[The Sklar Brothers]

I was like, how'd you feel after that?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So much better. Yeah, so much better. So much better. We.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It brings you closer to the person.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Totally brings you closer. Because then you're like. You're just admitting, ah, up.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, right, right.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Who's the worst feature act that ever opened for you guys on stage? Sometimes, you know, you go on the road, you don't bring somebody and they just throw you.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So I don't know. I don't remember this person's name.

[The Sklar Brothers]

No, no, I wouldn't want you to say their name.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You would? No, no. He said, no, I would not want. Yeah. So we were up in Portland. Yep. Say the same thing. And this guy was not a bad comic, but he was just wrong for us. Like, a bad. Yeah, I think he had like. His final bit was like spitting on. Spitting on someone's. It was like, right for before. Dirty, dirty, dirty. To the point where you're like, oh, now we gotta like. Whatever we're gonna say that's even half shocking is not registering at all. We're digging out of this hole that this guy didn't. It wasn't even that funny. Just the audience was like, what was that?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And Ron Funches was opening for us.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

At that. Wait, he was new. He was.

[The Sklar Brothers]

He was the feature.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's how new he was.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And this other guy was the feature. And we'd never done this ever, ever, ever. Because we never want to do this. We went to the club manager and we were like, listen, I'm sorry that we're gonna ask this. Can we flip flop? Because Ron was hilarious. Flip flop these two and flip them so that Ron can feature and this guy can host them. And then we'll ask him not to do this bit. And it just sucks. Oh, the other one that was terrible was we were in Dallas, Texas, and at Hyenas, and this guy who was like the downtown one, you Know those fun, right? Great mockingbirds. Yeah. Packed and so good. This guy was, like, in the green room before the thing was talking to us about how he sold so much merch in the last, like, few nights because we hadn't been to this one. We were in the other one. They put you in all three, you know, like.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You did Plano then.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right, right, right.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Fort Worth. And then.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So we. We're like, oh, that's cool. And he just keeps going on about how much merch he's selling. And then Randy and I are like, like, well, we have to sell our merch because we're splitting the money, so. So we have to sell a certain amount of merch in order to, like, help add to the thing. So Rain and I are looking at each other, the more he's talking about his merch about, and. And we're like, okay. So he gets up for a second, goes out, and we're like, we gotta tell him not to sell his merch. You already had a great weekend. You're bragging like crazy.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So we're like, hey, man, you didn't ask us, but. And we're headlining and we don't do this ever. But honestly, we need to be able to sell our merch on this show. And since you've had such a great weekend, as you've talked about ad nauseam, like, non stop, like, we're gonna ask that you don't sell merch on this show. Just the show.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Just.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And we'll see how it goes. Yeah, I think we let him on the late show or whatever. So he gets on stage and he does like an extra, like 20 minutes, 15 minutes. Like, I think he did like 32 minutes.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

As a. As a feature. 33.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Supposed to do 20.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

20.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We're like, what the. And the crowd was so hot. And we're like, he's taking the whole. You know. And then of course, we got on stage and it was fine and we had a great set. And then because he wasn't selling his merch, we sold a ton of merch. And so then. And then we afterwards, like, at the merchand, we're like, he ain't selling shit. He is not. No, because he did an extra 15 minutes.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah. You can't do that today. No, it's tough. I've had. I've had shows where like, the feature goes, hey, can I sell my merch? And I always go like, I never act like, yeah, sure. I'm always like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I go, just. What I ask is, just don't. Don't be on the same table as me. Like, I need a little space between. Because I don't want audience members buying from me and then feeling like they have to buy from him or not buying from me, because then he's standing there. So I go little distance. And then. And then the host goes, I'm selling stickers. It's like, no, you're not. No, you're actually not. You know why? I don't even mind that it turns into a bazaar in the lobby. But I don't like that. Now each person is taking two minutes out of their set to talk about what QVC ad for what they're selling.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It just takes the flow out of the show.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Do you do a joke about what you're selling?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Because we started doing jokes, I kill with mine.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

What's your joke? What's your merch joke?

[The Sklar Brothers]

I say, well, you know, I sell pins.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yes.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And I said, well, I got these pins. They're great. You can put them on your denim jacket or your backpack or just throw them in that drawer that's got the flashlight and the dead batteries in it. And it's cash. It's cash only, so don't try to give me Bitcoin or Venmo. And I'll do something local like, I was in Wisconsin. I went. Or a block of cheese. Yeah, just give me the cash.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Uncle Sam doesn't need to know about my little pin hustle.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Ah, that's great.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's what I do. I only take cash.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

It's amazing. We say that Randy's daughter just got into the University of Michigan. And they cheer, and we're like. And we have first, and we have merch in the back, and people don't know how they're connecting. We're like, so what we're saying is, if we don't sell out of this merch, both of my daughters are gonna have to go to Michigan State. I can't. I would rather they go to a women's prison. And it's a big laugh. And then people come. We had a woman in San Diego. This was the greatest and also the most uncomfortable and also the greatest thing I've ever seen. She walks out to our merch table, drops down her purse, and she's like. Takes out her credit card, and she's like, I want it. And we're like, what can we get you? Like, there's shirts in there I want to buy for other people. And we're like, okay, I don't want to tell you what to do. Well, I don't know how that works. And she then goes to the. As people are coming out, she's like, you want merch? I'm buying merch. Which is, like, just not a situation that anyone is even. So a bunch of people are like, we don't want merch. And so we have to see people say, we don't want them. And, no, we don't want that, Kenny. It's what. And so we're, like, rejected from, like, terrible ways. All these people are leaving. She's buying it for you, and you can throw it away. And then we're like, she's not doing well. Is it our fault? Like, she and then Jane are like, she could do a better job. Marketing, whatever. Well, maybe she needs a better, like, approach. Like, now we're talking about her approach. Do we need to, like, school her on that? Then some people are like, that's so nice. I will. And she starts buying merch, and she buys $500 worth of our merch for other people and herself and her husband is standing, like, eight feet away. Like, all right, all right, babe. We're like. And so we're feeling bad, but, like, she does it. And they're like, two rich people, or I think, who come to the show, and we're like, can we give you a hug? Can we? You know, let's take a picture with you. You're so sweet. Like, honestly, like, it's such a funny thing. The merch is such a funny thing. Because Randy, our dad, was a traveling salesman, sold alteration supplies. Remember that? Like, Velcro and, like, needles and thread and shoulder pads and, like, bra cups. And the. Our MTV show got canceled, and then we didn't have work, and we were nervous, as we knew. And he said, why don't you go on a business trip for me to Washington, D.C. and so we go to D.C. to, like, these big malls, and we're walking around in malls while our MTV show is still on the air. And kids are like, what are you doing here? And we're like, we're selling shoulder pads.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Get out of here. Yeah, Selling them to who?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

To, like, Taylor's and, like, Neiman's. Neiman's the north shirt.

[The Sklar Brothers]

She got a suitcase full of samples.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Sample bags. Walking into department stores in, like, today's man suits. Men's warehouse. And we. I mean, it was like, I hope.

[The Sklar Brothers]

This is in the show that you guys are doing.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

It's not, but it's such A by the way, that was a joke that got cut from our thing from the VES Awards that I was sad about. We're like, you know, this is. Welcome to Hollywood's Most Glamorous Night. You know, the fashion here is just incredible. I can't tell you how many. We're just on the red carpet. I can't tell you how many times someone said, who are you wearing? And they're like, Nordstrom Rack, Today's man. How did they cut that? They said they don't want. These are successful people who know how to dress. I was like, all right. But, but so, so we were walking around and Randy and I, after that weekend, filing, basement, basement.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Ross dressed for last.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Filing's basement. So we, we walk around and we get to like stay at some shitty hotel and we say to ourselves, we're never doing this. We are not doing this. This is not as much as our dad wants us to be in this life with him, which I understand he got into the business. It's a three person business. He really dreamed of his sons joining him in this business. We probably would have done well and okay. And it would have been a nice life and great for him. It is not what we want to do. We want to do the polar opposite of this.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Now we are carrying our merch to cities and selling our merch to people. We're doing the goddamn same thing.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And I'm sitting behind a microphone. Interviewing that's right.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

You become your parent. We are in circle. Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

All right, listen. The Sklar brothers are coming to your town. They're going to be in Aspen, Colorado.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah, the Aspen Comedy Festival. Did you know that thing's happening?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Is it HBO again?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I don't know if it's hbo, but it just might just be the Aspen kind. Wheeler Opera House. Huge theater. I'm very excited.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And it's March, so you can ski.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah. March 12th so badly.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Detroit, March 13th through 15. And then Minneapolis at Acme on March 20th and 22nd. Some people say it's the best club in the country.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I love it. I mean, so we went to Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle. First time we've been there in like 30 years. Had had the best shows.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Detroit's back, baby, back.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

And like the fans were great, the shows were great. So we did that. And then I love Minneapolis. And then two weeks later we're at Comedy Works.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Comedy Works in Denver. You're at the, the outside of Denver.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

South one, which I love.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It's a bigger room. You can make a little more Money. Do they pay you more when you work that room?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So there's. We've been trying to craft our deals in such a way that you sell a certain amount of tickets and it switches to a percentage percentage, which is way better for us.

[The Sklar Brothers]

That's the way.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Way better. So you have more of an opportunity to hit that by with more people there.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Hey, look at. Look at us. We're all just grinding week to week after all these years.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

This is what Patrice Rip would say. It's like, I'm just a grind. That's who I am. I'm just gonna be grinding this thing. But that's how you get better. So when you see a comic, when you see someone who's been like, incredibly. That's why Burst so good, he still goes out and does set.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yep.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

If you see someone who was like a great comic, but then they get successful, they do movies and stuff, they don't have time to do stand up anymore, or they don't want to do stand up because they're like, I don't have to do that grind anymore. You're not as good.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Right.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

We, by our nature of where we are in this business, we have to go out and do it all the time. So we're still sharp. I think it's. It's.

[The Sklar Brothers]

There's a confidence level that comes from going to the gym, you know?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

It's like you gotta go to the gym because there's subtleties that people have no idea how many split second decisions, hundreds of them are made during a set. And when you're confident because you've been going to the gym, then you can make those decisions. You can make those. Like you guys talked about the adjustments.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Yeah.

[The Sklar Brothers]

The constant. Am I talking too loud? Am I not moving enough? Like, little things. Do I hit this word? Do I take a longer beat between these two jokes? Because right now they're too hot and I got to cool them down. Because this is.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

The pause is everything.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So we were working on our two man show, which we.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Oh, yeah, let's talk about that for a minute.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So we just did it in at Sketchfest at the Gateway Theater. We did San Francisco. We just did a run of it at the Lyric Hyperion. Here we have New York investors. The hope is to take it to Broadway.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Really? You got investors?

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

So I believe that maybe sometime in the near next year, we have a shot to maybe bring it to New York. Off Broadway, then bring it to Broadway, if we're lucky.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I love this show. I think it's great. But there was one little thing that we kind of added on the show and literally the pause is everything. Yeah. The joke was we survived the tick tock ban. Darkest eight hours of my life. Yeah, terrible. Because I was like, what am I supposed to watch? I said, what am I supposed to watch while I'm driving? All right, that was my joke. And we're like, put upon our buddy Evan Shapiro, who's our director, who he was like, put the pause in between watch and driving. So then I said it. I dark state hours of my life. What am I supposed to watch while I'm driving? And the pause made it bigger, what you just said, like, do I pause? Do I pause there? Do I not? Do I?

[The Sklar Brothers]

And it's the difference between sometimes no laugh and a huge laugh. And that's why, you know, if you think of a joke, I guess if I were to talk to young comedians and I do, I actually mentor a couple. A couple people. We have two and, you know, and I bring them on the road with me and I try to get them auditions in town and I read their stuff. But I would say to them, if you had a. If you had a strong feeling that a piece of material was good and it doesn't work 12 times, do it 13, do it 14. Because there's a reason why you thought there was something.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

You just haven't found the way to communicate it yet.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's right.

[The Sklar Brothers]

And it's going to be the difference between a word or a pause or an inflection.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

I mean, what's the. Who's the quote? What's that great quote I heard? Winners are losers who haven't quit yet. I mean, that's such a great quote. And it's so right on and it's so true. It's like you bail on something before you give it its real shot.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Before you really work every angle of it. When the fires were happening here, which were terrible, we tried to find what's even remotely funny about the way we were engaging with this whole thing, which was how much local news we were watching after never watching. I didn't even know we had local news stations here in la. But then for like a week, I know everything about like Dallas rains.

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah, right.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

How he's getting his suits tailored. We see the changeover from afternoon to evening. And I know the difference between that. We know them so well. What we said was it's like hooking up with someone at a destination wedding. You know what I mean? Like, suddenly you're spending all the time with them. You're like, when we come back, you come back to the mainland and you're like, new. New tv? Who did?

[The Sklar Brothers]

Yeah, yeah, I do a joke about it. I go now because of the fires now. Like, nobody. Everybody's depressed except local news, because it's the only time we watch local news. And they know that we're waiting for them. They're like, welcome back to Channel 4 News. We're still fucking here, right? Let's go out to Chopper four now and take a look at that blaze. How's it look, Dennis? Well, Bill, about an hour ago, the fire was almost completely out. But then as we slowly lowered the chopper to just above the flames, suddenly they're shooting out in all directions. We're back in business, see, at 11.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

That's so funny. So we're like, these guys, the next week, are trying their hardest to rope you back in. Like, come on. There's. There's. There's Wind in the Inland Empire. I don't give a. About the Inland Empire. Well, you can see other channels. We'll let you watch other channels. It's fine to see. We're open. And then we're about to shut off the tv, and they're like, I'm pregnant. How do you know it's ours? What?

[The Sklar Brothers]

It's a pillow. I can see this Cornish.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

How do you know it's ours?

[The Sklar Brothers]

All right, guys, thanks again. Love you.

[Greg Fitzsimmons]

Love you, too.

[The Sklar Brothers]

All right.