#2484 - David Cross

Summary

The Joe Rogan Experience #2484 - David Cross

Date: April 16, 2026
Guest: David Cross
Special Guest (through much of episode): Bob Odenkirk (Note: In this transcript, Joe Rogan does not appear - it's David Cross and Bob Odenkirk in a freewheeling conversation.)

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Episode Overview

This episode brings together two comedy icons, David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, for a free-form, nostalgic, and philosophical conversation about the worlds of stand-up, the evolution of comedy, their formative years in Boston, the changing nature of media and technology (from radio to AI), childhood memories, and the anxieties and absurdities of life in 2026. The discussion moves from personal anecdotes about the grind and community of the Boston comedy circuit, through the mechanics of sitcom work, to worries about the rapid development of artificial intelligence and its implications for privacy, creativity, and human identity. The conversation is candid and laden with humor, displaying both speakers’ characteristic wit and insight.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nostalgia for Old-School Comedy & Boston’s Unique Scene

• Cross and Odenkirk reminisce about their early years in stand-up, the toughness and camaraderie of Boston comedy, and legendary figures like Barry Crimmins, Lenny Clarke, and Steven Wright.
• The Boston scene is described as both fiercely supportive and intensely competitive, with many staying local, perfecting the same act for decades – a ‘velvet prison.’
  • Memorable quote:
    “Boston's not a big city, you know, and to have so much comedy all come out... these guys became these local legends where they never had to leave. And they kind of did the same act for decades... velvet prison.” (Bob Odenkirk, 69:35)
• Discussion of local legends’ resistance to “sellouts” who went to Hollywood, with some bitterness or jealousy, especially toward breakouts like Steven Wright.

2. Comedy Craft, Evolution, and the ‘Trap’ of Success

• Exploring how many comics got “trapped” in local scenes or writer’s rooms, never building a national audience.
  • On the value of moving and growing:
    “If you never left, you had no chance of developing like a national audience...” (Bob Odenkirk, 78:48)
• Reflection on material stagnation, the dangers of getting too comfortable (with quips about golf and family as “traps”).
  • “If they didn't have the wherewithal or foresight or willpower to get out of that trap, then they probably weren't meant to do that.” (David Cross, 80:02)

3. Inside Comedy’s Business Side and Anecdotes of the ’80s/‘90s

• Stories about mobbed-up comedy club owners, getting paid in cash (or cocaine), strong-arming for payment, and the sometimes criminal chaos of Boston clubs.
  • Fitzsimmons’ legendary “watch-for-gigs” story (53:04).
  • The intimidation of navigating payment in “a room with a gun and a safe” (57:08).

4. Influence of Legendary Radio and TV Figures

• Deep dives into Art Bell (“Coast to Coast AM"), Phil Hendrie, and how late-night radio both fascinated and inspired comics.
  • On Bell’s hosting style:
    “He would always, always treat the guest with deference, you know, respect... he’d let them go. Let it breathe.” (David Cross, 07:54)
• Tribute to Phil Hendrie’s character work and prank calls, including a hilarious ‘Pizza Hut’ call (13:33–16:17).
• Discussion of TV’s first “golden age” from Twilight Zone to the dawn of sitcoms.

5. Sitcoms and Showbiz Realities

• Candid talk about the mechanics (and tedium) of multi-cam sitcoms, including NewsRadio, with reflections on the ease, income, and lack of glamour.
  • “There’s nothing glamorous about a sitcom… it’s literally: you’re driving to work and you’re going to work, you know?” (David Cross, 49:01)
• Difference between creative joy and the “trap” of a long-running but uninspired sitcom (88:05).
• The unpredictability and sometimes cluelessness of network executives (84:57).

6. Artistry, Teaching, and Lost Dreams

• Cross and Odenkirk discuss the power of good and bad teachers on creative ambition, with poignant tales of art class misery and inspiration (93:52–95:52).

7. Technology, AI, and The Frightening Present/Future

• A major thread is anxiety around AI: from deepfakes, “digital gods,” and AGI to the erosion of privacy and the possibility that we’ll all have to “integrate” with AI to survive.
  • On AGI’s threat:
    “Banked on being a showrunner in the 90s. And then… that thing seems to have dwindled to like 20% of what used to be.” (Bob Odenkirk, 82:06)
  • On integration:
    “I think if you don't integrate, you will, you won't survive… if you think we have haves and have nots now, just wait until the haves have artificial general super intelligence inside their head.” (Bob Odenkirk, 134:11)
• Discussions on surveillance, predatory online dangers (Roblox, Snapchat), and accelerating loss of personal agency.

8. Pop Culture, Sci-Fi, and Enduring Inspirations

• Extended appreciation for The Twilight Zone, discussing famous episodes and its influence on modern storytelling (98:55–109:39).
• Nod to Mr. Show’s creative process and HBO’s willingness to “let them be unconventional” (109:39).

9. Stand-Up: The Essential Outlet

• Cross describes developing new hour-long stand-up (“The End of the Beginning”), his love for live experimentation, and why he’d “go crazy” if he couldn’t do stand-up (149:00).
  • “The thing that I absolutely have to do is stand up... if you told me I can't do stand up, I'd go crazy.” (David Cross, 149:02)
• Reflections on the privations of lockdown and the emotional impact of returning to the stage (“I almost… started tearing up... I dreamed about this day,” David Cross, 149:37).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Comedy’s Velvet Trap:
  “It was like a velvet prison… really great comics that get jobs in the writer's room. That’s a velvet prison. Because if you get stuck... you're never going to get an audience.”
  – Bob Odenkirk, 79:36

• On AI and the End of Privacy:
  “Delete your search history, delete your bookmarks, delete your Reddit, medical records, 12-year-old Tumblr... None of it is safe. Will all become public in the next year.”
  – Bob Odenkirk reading tweet, 132:33

• On Radio & Art Bell:
  “He would always, always treat the guest with deference…he’d let you go… let it breathe.”
  – David Cross, 07:54

• On Creativity & "Mr. Show":
  “It was all live… there was never any sweetening. By the time we were towards the end… we could shoot a show in 44 minutes… no need to do it twice.”
  – David Cross, 108:21

• On New York’s Black Israelites:
  “They informed me that I'm not white... they hated white people, but I was Italian so I was just talking to this because I was bored...”
  – Bob Odenkirk, 39:40

• On a Stand-Up Career’s Humble Dream:
  “We used to dream about the day we could pay our bills telling jokes. That was all it was.”
  – Bob Odenkirk, 49:47

• On Boston Comedy Club Payments:
  “There’s cash and there’s a gun. This is just open, right? And he gives me… the money. Ain’t gonna count it? No, I’m good. I trust you… and I just bolted.”
  – David Cross, 57:08

• On Teachers and Inspiration:
  “Bad teachers can really ruin your life. And good teachers can change your life.”
  – Bob Odenkirk, 94:42

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Key Timestamps

• Boston Comedy Memories & Club Stories:
  43:02–74:34
• Influential Radio Hosts (Art Bell, Phil Hendrie):
  05:07–22:32
• Sitcom/Showbiz Mechanics & NewsRadio/Bob's Career:
  45:07–49:59
• On Creativity, Teaching, and Artistic Disappointments:
  93:22–98:52
• Twilight Zone & Early TV’s Influence:
  98:55–109:39
• Discussion of AI, Surveillance, and Future Shock:
  122:58–135:46
• Philosophy, War & World Affairs:
  143:12–146:29
• On Stand-Up as Life's True Calling:
  147:02–150:11

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Flow & Tone

The episode is unhurried, conversational, and at turns hilarious and sobering. The chemistry between Cross and Odenkirk is natural—backed by decades of shared experience, mutual respect, and deep insider knowledge of comedy’s inner workings. Their humor is self-deprecating, sharp, and often laced with existential reflection, especially as they discuss the overwhelming pace of technological change and the uncertainties ahead for comedians and regular people alike.

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For Listeners

Even if you’re not deeply familiar with the Boston comedy scene or every media reference, you’ll find a goldmine of behind-the-scenes stories, hard-won insights into comedy and showbiz, and sharp commentary on the digital age’s challenges. Fans of Mr. Show, NewsRadio, or classic stand-up will be especially rewarded.

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David Cross's latest special, "The End of the Beginning," is now available on YouTube.

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(Summary excludes all ad reads and non-content sections.)

Transcript

[David Cross]

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[David Cross]

David Joseph, good to see you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Good to see you, dude. I haven't seen you in a long time. When was the last time we were actually in a room together?

[David Cross]

I. Well, I was trying to think of that. I don't know. I would imagine Post news radio. We hung out at some point at some show, somewhere.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Somewhere.

[David Cross]

But I don't know. But I do remember because I did news radio a couple times and we. We hung out.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I remember.

[David Cross]

I think we both. No, just. You had more hair than I was probably already at this point.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I was fighting to keep it. I was hanging out.

[David Cross]

Are you. Do you shave or is that it? Is that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, I mean, I'm bald. If I didn't shave, I'd be bald all the way up here. But I got a hair transplant and it was useless. Yeah, I did a joke about it. I go. Having a hair transplant is like taking people that are healthy and moving them into a neighborhood where everyone's dying. This is just like. Where did Bob go? He just fucking flew off the face of the earth.

[David Cross]

So. Yeah. So you just accepted it and said, fuck it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I should have done it a long time ago. It's so much better. And I don't have to talk to a barber. I don't have to listen to boring fucking stories while they hold you hostage with a pair of scissors.

[David Cross]

That's what this is. This gets me. I don't like shaving. I don't. It's kind of a pain in the ass. And I also, I look like a kind of a. I look like a turtle, you know, when I shave and I don't like it and it's not attractive to me and I jerk off to me all the time, so I want to keep things fresh. But this, I probably don't have to. I could probably get clippers and stuff, but I go to, you know, one of my guys around the corner where I live, and. And I. I have this experience where I'm. I. I want that. I want to get in and out, right. Because of what you were saying. A lot of chit chat. And there are a couple guys, very quiet. Hi, how you doing? Good. Fist bump, whatever you got. You know what I want? Doom. Get. Get out of there. There's one guy who just talks all. And. And then they have that. The blade, you know, the, the. What do you call that? You know, the blade.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Blade straight.

[David Cross]

Thank you. And. And they got it right there. So you got to be polite. It's on your. It's by your.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

You know, and I know I could avoid it if I just get some clippers and just do this thing, but I don't. I don't know. That was boring and. Sorry. There's no point to it. Anything to do with what we were talking about.

[Bob Odenkirk]

There's something about a beard, though, that makes you distinguished or at least have experience or.

[David Cross]

Or look like a homeless, you know, alcoholic. I mean, there are plenty of those guys, too.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, there's a lot of those, too. But. But a beard is like. There's a statement with a beard. Like a full beard. Like yours. White.

[David Cross]

Mine is just, you know, I don't like shaving, like, you know, and again, I do, like. I only gain weight in two places. Stomach and right here. And also I have a kind of a thin frame, so it's really not attractive. It's not attractive.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So the beard is sort of.

[David Cross]

It's. It's more laziness. It's. I don't have to worry about it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, no, I hear you.

[David Cross]

And this, you know, I just. I go, I don't know, six, seven weeks, and then I just shave it once it gets out. Because this. My hair doesn't grow down or it just grows out like a clown, you know, it goes this way. All of it. Even this, too. And. And once this starts filling in, it, it just looks goofy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. I have a friend, my friend Hassan, he used to shave his head and now purposely to look goofy, he lets the sides go out and it's madness. It's just. It's all fucking crazy.

[David Cross]

Thick hair and bald on top.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And bald on top. Yeah, yeah. And he does a joke on stage about it. It doesn't. This impression. He's Indian. This is my impression of an Indian pussy.

[David Cross]

And is he just, like, not concerned about getting laid or.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, I think he's just embracing. But he still gets laid, you know, because he's really. He's really funny. I think he just embraces not giving a fuck. There he is.

[David Cross]

Oh, he looks familiar to me. Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Very funny guy.

[David Cross]

All right, cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He's one of the up and comer. Well, he's from LA originally. He was one of the doormen at the Comedy Store.

[David Cross]

Okay. He looks very professorial.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He's very smart.

[David Cross]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But doesn't give a fuck about his hair.

[David Cross]

Who's that?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Art Bell.

[David Cross]

I was going to guess. Art Bell, I swear to God. Yeah, I swear to God. I don't even know if I'VE ever seen him coast to coast.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes, yes. From the Kingdom of Nye. Wow. I fucking love that show. That was the show that I listened to coming home from Hollywood because I lived out in the Valley and I would drive home at night and I'd listen to Late Night with Art Bell.

[David Cross]

Art. Coast to coast with Art Bell. I used to do a whole bit about the like. Because. Who's the new guy? George Noring. George Nori. Right. And I'm gonna digress for one second. Did you ever. Do you play video games at all?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes. Well, I try not to, but I used to play a lot of them.

[David Cross]

Did you ever play Prey?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, but I know what it is.

[David Cross]

A great underrated. Underrated game got ripped off or just people bit certain things that they started. But one of the coolest things. So it's about like this. It takes place on a reservation, you know, in the 90s, I guess, or something like that. And there's a bartender and her boyfriend, and. And it takes place in this bar and then aliens come, and then this guy goes on the alien ship to go rescue her. But they did this really cool thing. So first they have this in the video game, right at the bar. There's a tv, and as you walk towards it, it's playing. It's like staticky until you get closer to it and. And then as your character gets closer to it, it's Art Bell talking about aliens and stuff. I know I'm not doing it justice, but it was such a cool, smart idea. And God bless him, he was the og. Yeah. And just some of the guy. One thing that. Cause I listen to it a lot too. Cause sometimes, you know, you're listening and you're like, this is insane. This is crazy. And he would always, always treat the guest with deference, you know, respect. And I, I. That must have been. Because there were things that were. You know, if you go back to all the episodes that were kind of contradictory in a sense, you know, like, wait, you think all these things happen? You think there's a. A place in the middle of the ocean that has, like. It's a community of people that live there and then. But you also think this, like all these different things. It'd be like, huh, interesting.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. He would let you go.

[David Cross]

He'd let you go.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, he'd give some air.

[David Cross]

But he was. Yeah, he was never rude or.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, never. You call him up. He had a time traveler line where you would call specifically if you were a time traveler,

[David Cross]

But if you were calling from the past. They didn't have that technology yet.

[Bob Odenkirk]

How about that one? Mostly people from the future, I believe, like Art.

[David Cross]

I'm calling from seven minutes in the future.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Listen, I think his whole deal was if you are here in this current era, but you are from another time, you could call because, you know, the idea was, like, he would have these remote viewers and oddballs on and they would talk about that.

[David Cross]

We.

[Bob Odenkirk]

We have had the ability to time travel for a long time.

[David Cross]

Oh, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, there are wormholes that exists and they explain the quantum dynamics involved. And time travel has been breached by the CIA in the 1960s.

[David Cross]

Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And you have these people call up, but Art would always, like, give them air. Like, let him breathe. Let it breathe.

[David Cross]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Art. I'm a werewolf. Interesting. Tell me more like it. It didn't matter. No matter what it was, it was a fun show.

[David Cross]

Yeah, I loved it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

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[David Cross]

And. And then a lot of people. Ex military. Right. You know, you get that like whistleblowers. I was stationed in.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

You know, outside of a remote island that I can't go into off of Singapore. And I witnessed some things, Art, that I still have difficulty believing. And then he. Yeah, what happened?

[Bob Odenkirk]

It was great. So fun.

[David Cross]

And you. So did you also listen to Phil Hendry?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes. Oh, God, he was the best.

[David Cross]

Super genius.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The best thing about Phil Hendry was the people that didn't understand what was going on, they would call in and be really upset.

[David Cross]

Well, the first two times I heard him, I didn't understand what he was doing. He's that good, too. Then I. And I would be like, this is crazy, this guy. And then eventually you're like, oh, he's doing characters because he, you know, repeat characters and stuff. But I got the chance to watch him do a show. So he's got. He's got the. He's got three mics, I want to say, like two mics like this. And then a phone mic or, you know, a phone. Like a hand, old time, you know, cradle phone. And he was doing himself the. The woman who's runs the HOA or whatever that. Whatever her name was. That. That character. And then somebody else calling in. Like, he did somebody calling on the phone. And it was. I mean, it was like a magic act. It was crazy to watch how. Without missing a beat. And I could see, you can see how he strategically takes breaths so that he can go from one character to another and interrupting each other. You know, it was fascinating, but he's a genius.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's the only thing that right away I was like, oh, wait a minute. There's no cross talk. Like. Right. Well, if one of the early times I listened, I was like, I think this is the same guy.

[David Cross]

Yeah, well, he's. He bumps it up. Like, he's really good at almost, you know, making it sound as if, like. Because he'll interrupt himself and go. And I. Okay. But, you know, and stop and then just go right into the other voice. It's fucking phenomenal and completely original.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, I don't know of anybody else that did anything like that.

[David Cross]

No. Did you ever. He used to put out stuff for charity, like CDs and things. And he has. I don't know what it would be called, but it was one of the. One of the things he put out for charity. That was a guy called into the station. He was probably super high, but he called in thinking it was Pizza Hut. And he fucks with this guy in the best way where he's like, and who's the. What's the woman character? He does. It's kind of like. Like a Black woman who's like, honey, it is the best. I don't know, Marjorie. I think maybe. But he. Then he does that woman answering the phone at, you know, Pizza Hut, and then he does the automated thing. Like, she's like, I'm gonna put you on. It's easier to do the automated thing. So. And the guy's like, okay, all right. And. And then he gets out. He's like, thank you for calling Pizza Hut. The best pizza in a three block radius. And if you want. If you want. I'm not doing it justice. You gotta go do it. Hear it. Listen, can you. Yep, you got it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

All right. Headphones.

[David Cross]

Okay. It's so brilliant.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Wait, whichever. The large 16 inch deep pan. Dish pan. You got the dish pan deep or extra deep?

[David Cross]

Just a regular, large 16 inch thick

[Bob Odenkirk]

crust on a deep dish. You want puff dish? No. You want a.

[David Cross]

Any of them puffy cheese balls?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Anything like that? We got a special on Buffalo wing. We got a special on. Damn, I forgot the other thing. We got a special on something.

[David Cross]

All right, what do you want?

[Bob Odenkirk]

What kind of cheese you want? Blue Swiss, Cheddar monster. Okay, I think I'm gonna have the wrong location here.

[David Cross]

All right, hold on. And he's. Submit for calling Pizza.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Your call is being transferred.

[David Cross]

Please have all credit card information available for our operators. Yes, Pizza. Hello?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Hi.

[David Cross]

Yes, hi.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Hi.

[David Cross]

Which location are you at? We're at the corner of La Cienega and Venice.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Okay, I'd like to place an order for delivery. All right, can I put you on hold? We'll put you through our automated system.

[David Cross]

Hold on, please.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Thank you for calling Pizza. If you'd like cheese pizza, press 1. If you'd like a meatball pizza, press 2. If you'd like sausage, press 3,

[David Cross]

Press 2. Oh, it goes on and on and on he goes. He eventually gets the guy a fish pizza. And the guy's like, no, man, this. I don't want fish. It's really funny. But that's him. That's Phil doing all those voices. And that's not set up. A guy had called into the studio thinking it was pizza. And they're like, take this call.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Did you ever meet him?

[David Cross]

I did briefly when I got to see him do his. He did a live show at Aspen Comedy Festival. Long, long, long time ago.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I did something with him. Bob Odenkirk and Doug Stanhope.

[David Cross]

Oh, wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And Adam Carolla. I don't remember where it was. I want to say it was somewhere in Canada, but it was some. Sit down. We were talking about the process of going through. Cause he was in the middle of doing some sort of a television show pilot.

[David Cross]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So we were talking about the process of creating a pilot and what it's like trying to get a pilot to an actual finished television show and get it approved and what the struggles are. It was very Canadians. I don't think it was for. It was. It was like one of those Montreal Comedy Festival things.

[David Cross]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, where they had some. It was like some weird. It was a long time ago. It was like, God, 2001 or something like that.

[David Cross]

Yeah. I vaguely remember when he was there was going to be. Because he would talk about it doing this sitcom.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Did it ever happen?

[David Cross]

I don't think so, no.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He was a really nice guy, though. Not what I expected at all. I expected him to be fucking insane. Just like. Just to be able to do that every night and not get bored with just completely with people every day.

[David Cross]

It's got to be exhausting too, like, mentally, because you're. You've got to remember. It's like really great improv, guys, where you have to remember all these details, bring them back 30 minutes later. Right. And you're. You're doing multiple characters. You ever see TJ and Dave?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No.

[David Cross]

Oh, dude. The best.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. What is it?

[David Cross]

It's T.J. jatagowski and Dave Pasquazi, who were like the kings of that stuff in. Out of Chicago. And they come, they tour around, and they're just. They're two guys who. It starts off, you know, it's none of its plan, none of its. And they have like a dedicated cult following when they're in New York. It sells out like that. And you got to go to at least two shows to see how wildly different it is. I mean, there are two guys that come out on stage. Usually it was like three chairs. And it'll just start with, like, you know, how's it going? Good, good, good. Are you in line? No, no, no. And that you watch it like, oh, they're in line. Where are they in line at? Do they know each other? And then it turns out they're at the dmv, but they're not. It's like a room outside of the dmv. And then they will leave and come back and be somebody else. Right. A kid that was mentioned or a wife or something, or be in a car. And it all wraps up. It's all a big story. And I have seen. I've probably seen him 30, 40 times. And I've seen shows that were Funnier, more poignant than some plays that have been worked on for years.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Completely improvised.

[David Cross]

Completely. 100%.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Wow.

[David Cross]

Oh, they're. They're. I mean, I. Do you know Tim Meadows?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

So Tim was a guest. Sometimes I'll have a third person.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I know who he is. I don't. I don't.

[David Cross]

So I was. And Tim's been, you know, snl. Yeah. And ensconced in that second city world for decades. And he said it was the most terrifying thing he's ever done because you're. They're like genius level. I mean, the detail you have to remember. And then on top of it, if one of them is, I'm a marine biologist or whatever, it slips out. Then that person has to know about the real person playing the fake marine biologist has to know enough about marine biology to keep the thing going, and it's just next level.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I don't know about you guys, but with spring here I am ready to go outside. There's so much to do now that things are warming up, like getting your garden ready for the growing season, cleaning off your camping gear, or even taking a quick jaunt around the neighborhood. Anything to get outside. But that also means you're probably extra busy this time of year. That's where AG1 comes in. A healthy daily drink that helps support you all day long. One scoop of AG1 supports immune health, energy, digestion, and more. Plus, AG1 can replace all those multivitamins and probiotics crowding up your cabinet. See for yourself how making AG1 a part of your routine can help you stay on top of everything going on this season. Visit drink ag1.com Joe Rogan and for a limited time, get a bottle of Omega 3, vitamin D3K2, and an AG1 flavor sampler for free in your welcome kit with your first subscription. That's $111 value@drink ag1.com Joe Rogan. Well, I, I imagine that's like a muscle that you just get really strong with. Like ranters. Like, like Tim Dillon is the best at ranting on a podcast alone. He doesn't, he doesn't have anybody with him. Most of his podcasts are just him ranting. And I've watched the development of it. I'm like, that's an amazing muscle to develop because you just get accustomed to that kind of scenario, that situation where it's just in your mind, just gets used to producing content just.

[David Cross]

And like old school AM late night radio guys, right, who don't have people calling in who are like talking about whatever. And they got to do it, you know, four or five times a week.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Three hours by themselves.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. I used to always like to listen to them. I used to like to listen to those crazy right wings, angry political talk shows, because I don't, I didn't know anybody like that. So I was like, what. What is this guy doing?

[David Cross]

Well, that's, that was the bulk of the radio. I mean, that's why, you know, you have like Art Bell and Phil Hendry, like a nice, like. Oh, okay, yeah, there's. Because I got all this. I got Mark Levin and I got, you know, what's his name? You know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Rush Limbaugh.

[David Cross]

Rush Limbaugh, yeah. And. And when you first start listening, or when I first started listening and I came out to LA from Boston, you know, and people were like, there's this guy out here who's fucking nuts, you know, and I'd never heard of him in Boston. And then. And you're like, does he. How much of this stuff does he believe? Does he really believe? And how much has he come to believe? Does that make sense?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Cross]

And. And those guys. That was a whole fascinating thing. And Wally George. Do you remember Wally George?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I do, but I don't remember much about him. I remember the name. What did Wally George do?

[David Cross]

He was the guy who originated what. I mean, now it's really familiar. He remember Morton Downey Jr. He was a little after.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, that's right, that's right.

[David Cross]

And he would look at 83 and he was. And it was a super low budget, like cable access type thing back when that was a whole thing. And he'd get. The audience would be Putin and hollering and he'd have people on, like somebody who. And sometimes they. I, I think because it became popular sort of like with Morton Downey Jr. Where people came on to, quote, unquote, fuck with Wally George. Like, I'm going to pretend to be a, you know, a furry way and I'm gonna, you know, have gauges and, and you know what I mean? Like, just the archetype of the thing they want to yell at. And, and I think people started it was there were some people on there, you know, people lying about who they were, but he'd have people on and then. And then kick them off. It would happen all the time, like, come on, sit down. What the do you think you're doing? And everybody would yell at the person, they start talking. You're like, get the out of here. And that was, that was the show, you know, and here's something really crazy. And tell me if this is rumor. Look up your magic computer. Rebecca De Mornay's dad, the actress.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Wally George.

[David Cross]

Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Really?

[David Cross]

Look it up. Casey, right? Jamie. Jamie. I'm gonna call you Casey.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Who is. I forget who.

[David Cross]

Rebecca de Mornay was from Risky Business.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, wow. Wow. Her dad.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Is Wally George. Wow.

[David Cross]

Isn't that crazy?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Married multiple times. Shocker. Probably potentially ten times. Had at least six children.

[David Cross]

Holy shit. Look at how many times he was married. 1, 2, 3, 4. Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Possibly 10.

[David Cross]

Possibly 10.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Can you imagine? Just keep fucking signing up.

[David Cross]

I don't. Yeah. I just read, literally the other day, Fleetwood Mac guy getting married for the fifth time. He's 182 and he's getting like, what? Stop.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Why do you want to keep doing that? They believe. They really believe. This is it. This is the one.

[David Cross]

You have to say those vows and mean it each time.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Or not. Yeah. Or just say, this is just a fun thing that I do.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Keep a lady happy.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Or just have a party, I guess.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Have a party and pretend that you're

[David Cross]

normal now and you're married.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Yeah. How long you been married?

[Bob Odenkirk]

17 years.

[David Cross]

Oh, nice. Yeah. It'll be 14 in October.

[Bob Odenkirk]

If I get divorced, that's a wrap.

[David Cross]

What do you mean?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, I'm happy, happily married. I don't want to get divorced. Not saying that. But if I ever get divorced, I'm never.

[David Cross]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, same here. Yeah. Oh, I feel the same. Silly.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I'm not having any more children, so if I don't have any children, it makes no sense.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

To legally be bound to some person. Can we just hang out?

[David Cross]

I am 100% with you. I. And I was never a anti marriage guy, but I just didn't think I'd get married because I didn't want to. And then eventually I met somebody who I wanted to marry.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. It's like you just have to. It has to. I mean, that's the thing. It has to be the right person. Everybody always has that, except Wally George. But the idea of doing it 10 times is fucking insane.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, that's a. They're doing a different thing.

[David Cross]

I think once you get. I'll give you three. And let's say one of them was some fishy circumstances. I'll give you three. Once you get on your. By the time you're going to be on your 4th or 5th or 6th or Rupert Murdoch marriage. Like, I. What is the point? And why does that Woman believe you. What does it say about the lady?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, what about ladies that do it? I've been here for six years and I know one lady while I've been here, she's been married twice. Married and divorced twice. And now she's on the third guy.

[David Cross]

Yeah, I would. Look, I mean, that says something about the guys, right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I guess. Yeah.

[David Cross]

Man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Come on.

[David Cross]

If you, you wouldn't ever think like, you meet somebody, you like them, and then you find out they've been married twice before in six years, right? And you. And you were like starting to fall for her, you wouldn't think, wait a minute, what's.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Unless she was hot. Men are dumb. If she's hot and she's sexy and you really like being around her, you're like, who cares? She made mistakes. Yeah, who cares?

[David Cross]

I guess you're right. If the sex is that good.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, if the sex is good, she's hot and you love being around her and that's what she wants. You want to make her happy.

[David Cross]

Like, okay, I get, I'll do. I'll say this. You should find out. You should go talk to the other guys and have a sit down and find out why.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, the other one is some guys, they'll want to mess it up for you. So they'll lie. They might not be accurate. You know, they might paint a dis. Also, they might have been the up and they want to blame it on her. And then you'll get a distorted perception of who she is.

[David Cross]

But then, then it's back to her that she's marrying people.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right.

[David Cross]

Fucked up. Just. I guess the point is that we're both making is don't get married, you know?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, it is a weird thing. It's a weird thing to do. Do you have children?

[David Cross]

I do.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. It's a weird thing to do if you don't have children. Not weird, like you shouldn't do it, but it's a different thing.

[David Cross]

Yeah, completely.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. You're.

[David Cross]

And I, I would say that. Not that we, you know, my wife and I have any, you know, real issues, but I would behave myself and stay and work at the marriage. Because of the kid?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It fucks kids up when people get divorced.

[David Cross]

What's your, what's your background in?

[Bob Odenkirk]

My parents were split up when I was five and my mother remarried when I was six, seven and has been with my stepdad ever since.

[David Cross]

Oh, that's good.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, they have, they have a great relationship. I just saw him this weekend and. Where did you grow up everywhere. I was born in New Jersey, moved to San Francisco when I was 7. Lived in San Francisco from 7 to 11 in the height of the Vietnam War, in Haight Ashbury, like, hippie town, and then Florida from 11 to 13.

[David Cross]

That's the opposite of San Francisco.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, my God. Yeah. That's the first time I found out about the N word. I didn't know what it meant. And I remember I had to ask.

[David Cross]

No way.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. I had to ask my mom. I never heard it in San Francisco. Never heard it.

[David Cross]

Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

San FRANCISCO in the 1970s, when I was, you know, between 7 and 11, was kind of a wild, amazing time. It was really weird. It was because we were in the middle of, like, the counterculture movement, Berkeley, all that stuff. Yeah. We lived right down the street from Lombard Street. So we're, you know, we were, like, in the middle of it all, you know? And it's funny because it was during that time that the Vietnam War ended. When I was. I think I was. When did Vietnam end?

[David Cross]

74, I think. 74.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Officially 7. April 30th.

[David Cross]

75.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Okay. Yeah. So that was, like, how old was I? Whatever. The point is, like, at that time, I remember thinking, thank God they figured out war's bad. We're never gonna do this again. I literally had that thought. However old I was.

[David Cross]

What a naive child. Oh.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I was like. Because my stepfather had. He didn't get drafted. He got lucky. He just didn't get picked. And I knew a guy, some guy that was a friend of the family that had moved to Canada. He's like, fuck this. He took off to Canada. So I was aware of that, like, how people are leaving the country so that they don't have to go to war. Like, this is because you're a little kid. Everything's fucking scary, especially if you come from, you know, broken home and, you know, like.

[David Cross]

Yeah. And the concept of a draft or conscription, the idea like, oh, you may have to go and you're going to learn how to shoot a gun and then go shoot strangers, kids, you know, like that. It's got to be terrifying if you're a kid.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, it was insane. And it was also. There was also the time where, you know, my stepdad was a hippie and my parents were hippies. And when I was going to ask, why did.

[David Cross]

You're. Sorry to interrupt, but why did they move around so much?

[Bob Odenkirk]

My stepfather was a computer programmer initially, and then he wanted to become an architect, so he went to school in San Francisco and then University of Florida In Gainesville and then Boston Architectural Center. So we moved to Boston when I was 13. So that was what it was. It was him becoming an architect.

[David Cross]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And so, like, they. They didn't like sports. They weren't into anything like that. And then when Muhammad Ali was opposing the Vietnam War, he became this, like, counterculture hero.

[David Cross]

Sure.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. And I remember it was. My parents sat down and watched Muhammad Ali versus Leon Spinks because he was trying to win his title back and they were rooting for Muhammad Ali. I'm like, this is crazy. Like, this guy's stance on the Vietnam War has made my parents fans of his to the point where they're gonna watch boxing. Like, they never watch box. They didn't want to have anything to do with anything violent. They hated it.

[David Cross]

But they wanted one boxer to watch if you were anti, you know, hitting or boxing or whatever it was. Muhammad Ali was a strategist, you know, he was.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But quite honestly, by that stage of his career, he had slowed down considerably, and he. He just wasn't.

[David Cross]

Remember the Leon Spinks, because he.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Leon beat him.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then he beat Leon in the rematch.

[David Cross]

Right. This is the rematch. Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And that was the big one that we were all glued to the tv, but I remember thinking, this is crazy. They're watching boxing because of this guy's position on the Vietnam War.

[David Cross]

Have you seen When We Were Kings?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes.

[David Cross]

Yeah. It's great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's amazing. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. He was a God. You want to talk about a unique human being, like a one of one.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know. Yeah.

[David Cross]

And, you know, outside of, you know, Mike Tyson, there was never any kind of figure like that in boxing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, I mean, it was minor

[David Cross]

Sugar Ray Leonard sort of a little bit, but not.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Not to that extent. Because he wasn't a cultural figure.

[David Cross]

Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Muhammad Ali represented something during the civil

[David Cross]

rights movement, and he changed his name. Yeah. Muhammad Ali.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right, right. That was a big thing, too. People were terrified of Muslims.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

At the time.

[David Cross]

And still, I was going to say, at the time. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But it was a different kind of Muslims, you know, that was.

[David Cross]

Well, the. The. They were. The. You know, the government was really good about portraying every black urban person as like, potentially, you know, Muslim Brotherhood. 12 tribes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right, right, right, right.

[David Cross]

Those guys, they're still around. The Israelite 12 tribe.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, those guys.

[David Cross]

Yeah. They used to be. They used to hang out and hang out. They used to be in Times Square, like, you know, yelling and. And preaching.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I hung out with those guys. One day I wrote a piece about it for my website because I went, I was going home. It was when I was living in New York and I was walking down the street and there's this guy standing there with like a microphone a little. And they would read things from the Bible and they would translate it and they had this very bizarre translation. Everybody was black. George Washington was black. Everyone was black. They were explaining to me, you know, the so called Jew, they're black Israelites. The so called Jew was the thing that they always think, well, they're Jewish.

[David Cross]

Yeah, you don't have to say the so called.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, it was very odd.

[David Cross]

But their whole thing was there was a, a, a 12th tribe of the Israelites that were black that have been, you know, written out of history.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Mm. Yeah. That was their thing. Yeah. They also informed me that I'm not white. There was a relief. This episode is brought to you by Simply Safe. Have you ever looked into getting a security system? A lot of these companies can leave you feeling trapped, which is the last thing you want when it comes to your safety. They lock you into these absurdly long contracts end. You have to take time out of your day to wait for a technician. As a long time supporter of this show, Simply Save is nothing like that. Simply Save gives you the flexibility to choose what type of system you want and when to set it up. With no long term contracts or hidden fees, it ships to your door and you can easily install it. No technicians or drilling required. And I'm not just talking about a porch camera here. You can get the whole shebang. Sensors, cameras, inside and out and 24,7 professional monitoring. They earn your business by actually working. Simplisafe has even been called America's best customer service by Newsweek. It's clear why over 5 million people continue to use Simplisafe every day. Everyone deserves to have peace of mind. SimpliSafe is offering an exclusive discount to my listeners. And right now you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com/rogan. That's half off at simplisafe.com rogan. There's no safe like Simplisafe. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. We've all been there putting something off because we simply don't want to do it. And then it never gets done or you do it poorly. Your enthusiasm or lack thereof shows in your work. Hiring managers know this. It's a big factor they consider. And if you're like them, ZipRecruiter is your greatest ally because you can try it for free [e-mail] Rogan and ZipRecruiter just added a new feature that identifies people who are interested in your role from those who are just meh about it. That's in addition to ZipRecruiter's already powerful matching technology. It's an easy way to get matched with top talent, perfect for your role quickly, while also making sure that you're talking to people truly passionate about the work they'll be doing first. Use ZipRecruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for [e-mail] Rogan that ziprecruiter.com Rogan meet your match with ZipRecruiter. So it was because I'm Italian, they're like, oh, you ain't white. I was like, oh, oh.

[David Cross]

It's like the great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Because they hated white people. So I was just talking to this because I was bored, you know, I was just. So I was talking to this guy, I was having him explain everything to me, and he informed me, don't worry, man, you're not white. I was like, oh, okay, that's good. It's good to know.

[David Cross]

So you can hang out with.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes. You don't hate me. But it was very odd. Very odd. They're all dressed like superheroes. They all these crazy, like, Avenger costumes on.

[David Cross]

Yeah. And like jewelry.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Big.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Huge medallions around their neck. Yeah, yeah. Very odd stuff.

[David Cross]

There's still. You don't see them like you used to, but they're still out there, you know?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, yeah, yeah, they're out there.

[David Cross]

But I mean, like in. Literally in New York periphery of Times Square.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Last time I was in Philadelphia, I saw them.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They were out there on the street with the microphones.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Deal. Yeah. Yeah. It's an odd group.

[David Cross]

When were you in New York?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I was in New York. I moved to New York in 91. Yeah. So I started stand up in 88 in Boston, and I got picked up by my manager, who I'm still with, when I was essentially an open micr.

[David Cross]

Who was that?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Jeff Sussman.

[David Cross]

How do I not know Jeff Sussman?

[Bob Odenkirk]

He handles Kevin James.

[David Cross]

Was he a Boston guy?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, he was a New York guy.

[David Cross]

Okay. Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So the story was he had. What was his name? The guy who had all the crazy costumes. He was on the Rodney Dangerfield special. Bob. Oh, Bob Nelson.

[David Cross]

Bob Nelson, Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So he handled Bob Nelson.

[David Cross]

He. The Cleveland Browns.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. He put the helmet on. He had boxing gloves. He did Jiffy Jeff's Gym. He had brain damage. He did a bunch of different characters. So Bob, who is a big act, you know, he had an HBO special the whole deal at the time. He found Jesus. Oh, and where was he? In his basement, I guess, or something. It was in around the neighborhood somewhere.

[David Cross]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But he had this guy who is his prayer partner that was going to take over as his manager. And so this was my manager's big client. So he's like, like, I gotta. I gotta go find some other.

[David Cross]

So did. Did he just stop doing standup?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Because I don't know. I think. I don't know if he still does stand up. I don't know. I knew his career. My manager is really good and he's very smart and he did a great job guiding Bob. But I think sometimes when people like have like a big religious moment like that, like maybe that becomes more of their life than. He was all in. Yeah, yeah, he was all in with Christianity. And so my manager said, well, I kind of know most of the comics in New York. Let me see if I'm not missing people in Boston. And so he traveled to Boston with a friend of his, one of the guys that owned Governors, and they came.

[David Cross]

Governors was Bob's room, wasn't it? Yes, yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Out in Long Island.

[Bob Odenkirk]

One of the rooms that he worked at. Yeah. And so they came down to Boston and I just randomly went up one night at Duck Soup. Remember Duck Soup?

[David Cross]

Duck Soup.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Duck Soup was. It became the improv after a while. It was.

[David Cross]

I don't remember that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Billy Downs and Paul Barclay. Paul Barkley, I think it was actually Billy split. I think it was Paul's thing.

[David Cross]

So they split at that point, I think.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I'm not sure about that. But what it was, it was Paul's idea. Believe it was a much more high end room. Like it was really nice and it was right across from Nick's. So it was in the below area where the Wiltern is.

[David Cross]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So you know where the Wiltern is, which is now the big. You know, where Bill Blumen Wright does Comedy Connection shows.

[David Cross]

Wilbur, right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Is that it?

[David Cross]

The Wilbur?

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's the Wil. Okay, I'm thinking the Wilterns la.

[David Cross]

At Wilterns la. Right. I know what you're talking about.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The Wilbur.

[David Cross]

Right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're right. So downstairs, the Wilbur it was. You'd go down and it was a really nice room. Okay. And I was a limo driver at the time. I was driving limos and driving a limo and Boston. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Cross]

Jesus.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. That's what I was doing for a job.

[David Cross]

That's fucking. I mean. I just mean the literal streets of Boston are tough to navigate with any vehicle. But a limo, add an extra half a car to it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, it was. It wasn't that bad. It was mostly airport pickups, you know, and a lot of it was town cars, pick people up in town cars. But when you drive around a lot, that's when I would come up with my best ideas. And I had an idea for a joke and I called. God, I can't remember who the guy was. Fuck, I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. He was a really cool dude who was the manager of the club. And I could call him up and say, hey, could I get a guest spot? And he gave me a guest spot that night. I wasn't even supposed to be on the show, and my manager just happened to be in the room. And if I'd known he was in the room, I probably would have been nervous and I probably would have bombed. And I had no idea he was there. And then he came up to me afterwards and gave me his card, and he said, can I see you tomorrow? I said, okay. And then he just spent for a

[David Cross]

ride to the airport.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So I did a set at the Connection the next night, and then he asked me to come to New York and audition there. And then, wow. Next thing you know, I was living in New York. It was like three years later.

[David Cross]

Very cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then that was crazy, crazy story.

[David Cross]

And. And when did you move out to LA?

[Bob Odenkirk]

94. 93. Like, first came out in 93 and then moved in 94. I came out to 93 for a pilot. I did a pilot on Fox called Hardball with Jim Brewer and a bunch of other people. It was a baseball sitcom on Fox that got canceled. It was terrible.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then the only reason why I stayed, I hated la, but the only reason why I stayed was because I had got an apartment and I had a lease for a year. So I was like, fuck, like, I have to stay here. And so I stayed for a whole year, and then I got a development deal for NBC and they. I was there in the middle of this whole development deal, and then they said, we have a pilot that we already filmed, but we're gonna fire one of the cast members. We want you to audition for this. And that was news radio. So I Got to watch.

[David Cross]

Who did you replace?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, fortunately, it was Ray Romano, who's a good friend of mine, was fired during the pilot and so they replaced him with another guy and that guy got fired.

[David Cross]

Oh, wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. So it wasn't. I would have felt terrible.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

If it was Ray, but it was Ray being replaced. I was like, good, fuck that guy. I'll do it for Ray.

[David Cross]

Do you remember who the other guy was?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I do not. He was just an actor, some guy. And I mean, I never met him. Sure, he's a nice guy, but luckily for Ray, he goes on and does Everybody Loves Raymond. It becomes huge. And I just stumbled into this fucking show with no acting experience.

[David Cross]

That was a fun set. I remember because I did it a couple times and. And also, like, that was not my first, but one of the first experiences I had with multi camera sitcoms. You know, you're like, this is literally the easiest job on planet Earth. Oh, yeah, it is the. You have one full day. You have like a full. I think Thursday, right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

And then Friday is like half a day.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Monday, come in, listen to this. Read the script. Go away.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. It's the filming day. That's the long day. And it's not that bad. I mean, especially once we got loose. The first season was hard. The first season was 12, 14 hour days because it was like they were trying to figure out what the show was. But once it got rolling, it was pretty amazing. So I had only been doing standup for six years. I'd only been. I had done no acting. I had. They had made me get an acting coach for a little while in New York, which I think was counterintuitive.

[David Cross]

Newspaper.

[Bob Odenkirk]

For a pilot. For the pilot. The Fox pilot. Oh, yeah.

[David Cross]

Well, how's. How's an acting coach gonna help you with a sitcom?

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's about.

[David Cross]

It's about instinct. It's about.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, they were giving me a lot of money. They gave me like $150,000. Learn how to act, Right. Do you know how to act? I've never acted.

[David Cross]

I'm just saying, like, I know to deliver sitcom lines is. You don't need an acting teacher. Wow. Joseph, let's limber up the body. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're not Daniel Day Lewis. You're not doing There Will Be Blood. It was a. It was weird because it wasn't anything. I think the reason why it worked out so well is because it was never anything that I wanted. So there was no weight to it. It wasn't like, oh, my God, this is it. I am On a sitcom, I'm acting. It was more like, this is crazy. I can't believe I'm doing this. You know, it was more like, wow, I can't believe I got to do this. But, you know, the real thing for me was to be able to be in LA and go to the Comedy Store. That, to me, was more. That was more huge than, like, when I got passed at the Comedy Store. That, to me was, like, way bigger than being on a sitcom. I was like, holy shit. Like. Because at that, you know, like, it's six years in, I was like, am I even. Is this gonna work out? Like, I don't even know this is gonna work out.

[David Cross]

Well, it's also. Also not glamorous in any way that that aspect of working is. There's nothing glamorous about a sitcom. You know what I mean? It's not the thing that when you're not in LA or Hollywood and you're sitting back in your. You are told about the glamorous lifestyle, the parties and all that stuff. It's literally you're driving to work and you're going to work, you know?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. But it was glamorous in a sense that you were on television. And that was very weird to me. It was very strange to watch it on tv. I'm like, that is actually me on tv. I had zero aspirations for any acting at all.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It never was. It never even occurred to me. When I lived in Boston. I remember me and Fitzsimmons used to. We used to dream about the day we could pay our bills. Telling jokes. That was all it was.

[David Cross]

I hear you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It was just like, oh, God. I would see guys like DJ Hazard. I remember I went to look at this apartment, and DJ Hazard lived in the same building, and it was this converted schoolhouse and these loft apartments and like, a second floor where the. Like, the bedroom was and looked over the living room. I'm like, God, this is. He pays for this with jokes.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This was like, the most amazing thing. Like, that's all I wanted. I saw these, like, Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney. I was like, imagine being able to pay your bills, just telling jokes, untie

[David Cross]

my ankles in the morning. Remember that?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, I did. Yeah.

[David Cross]

What was I gonna say something? Oh, do you know Fitzsimmons? Paul Barclay story or Bill Downs? The watch? Bill Downs. It was Bill Downs.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Which one? How's it go?

[David Cross]

Oh, I. I don't. You should get it from him because it's his story, but. And I don't want to. I feel like it's his to tell. But it's fucking great. It's genius.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's bringing up something in my memory.

[David Cross]

So, so Bill owed everybody money, right? And like he's still, you know, those guys owe me whatever it is at this point, you know, what, 300, $500 just. And you go there and they were

[Bob Odenkirk]

just, everybody was big guy, remember? Yeah, I pay you soon, big guy.

[David Cross]

Oh, the word. And then. Do you remember when Bill adopted the girls?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes. Korean girls. Right?

[David Cross]

He, yeah. And he would use them like as, because at, at a certain point it didn't help to go to the connection or go to the clubs and you had to go to their fucking office if you want it. Nobody's going to call you back or whatever. And you like, I got to get on the T and go to the, go to their office. And that's the only way I'm going to get money is if I show up and he's in a position good mood and it's not gonna happen from a phone call. And I'd go there every single time. It's like, dude, I gotta pay my rent, man. I mean, I, I got nothing and you owe me, you know, $385. And back then that was huge. And ah, cross, I just listen. So I get these. My kids, one of my kids is sick and whatever. It was always this excuse. And then, and then, you know, with still the coke residual and the bottom of his nose. But so he owed Fitzsimmons a chunk of money. Like, like a significant amount. Like 1500, 1800 bucks. Like something, something meaty, you know, especially for back then. And you ask Greg. Cause I feel, I feel like no, tell the story.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I'm sure Greg's told it to me.

[David Cross]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Greg and I are pretty close. I just remember it some in, in my head. I do remember part of it, but I don't know the whole story.

[David Cross]

I don't remember it. All right, so Greg was booked at this, you know, some club in New Hampshire or whatever, and Downs was going to be there, Bill was going to be there and, and he goes, he goes there and he goes, oh, Bill, I, I, I forgot my watch. I don't want to go over. Can I, can I borrow your watch? And he's like, yeah, sure. It's like a Rolex, like some fancy, fancy, fancy watch. And, and Greg had this all planned out.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, I know the story.

[David Cross]

Yeah, yeah. And then he had, he had like parked in a specific place and then he, and then he gets, he's like, all right, thanks. And he's like, all right, don't forget to give it back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he does his set, and then he bolts out the back door, gets in his car, drives home, back to Boston. And then Bill calls him, hey, so I think you forgot to give me my watch back. And Greg just basically goes, yeah, you want it back? Give me the 1800 bucks you owe me. And then met him at a restaurant or a diner somewhere in a public place. Give me the cash, and I'll give you your watch. And it was just genius.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's Greg.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Those days are fun. Knicks comedy Stop. Used to offer to pay you in cocaine or cash.

[David Cross]

I. Dude. So I. I did Nick's. And the only. I've said this multiple times. The only. I'm extremely lucky that I was in Boston when I was in Boston, because the comedy boom's going on, and outside of, I don't know, three places, I just didn't do that well. And I certainly didn't do well at Nick's. I mean, I was the opposite. They, you know, it had that. The vague feeling of high school where you're the weirdo and people want to with you and throw you in the trash can. And. And so I got lucky because there were just spots. They just needed bodies. So I worked all the time, you know, not, you know, not great gigs, but I had. It was all cash, you know, under the table, and. And they just needed bodies to, you know, go up and do 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, at some cowboy bar in Pittsburgh or whatever. Fitchburg. Anyway, so I get this. I get a week at Nick's, and. And I am not doing well at all. I think I'm opening up for Kevin Knox. So not my crowd, and I didn't have the tracksuit. And you know, Knox, he's up there doing, hey, you know why? You know why Bill Buckner didn't catch the ball or get the ball? 86 World Series? Because he heard it at AIDS. On it. Okay, all right. Yeah, that's a real joke. That's a real joke. And they loved it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

More Wonderful.

[David Cross]

Yes, of course.

[Bob Odenkirk]

In that eight song.

[David Cross]

And then. Do you remember this? What does eight stand for?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, what?

[David Cross]

Adios, infected dick sucker.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, I do remember that. I do.

[David Cross]

Opening for him.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, my God.

[David Cross]

And it's his crowd.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And Adios, infected dick sucker. Oh, my God.

[David Cross]

God. Yeah. So I titled one of the tracks on my first album, I think first or second album. What if baseballs had AIDS on them? I'm fucking eating it, right? So they're peeling back my time as the week goes on. And. And I am. I mean, I. If I had done even okay, I wouldn't have had this feeling. They're already kind of intimidating, right? Super mobby.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Very mob.

[David Cross]

Very mob. And do you remember where the. You'd walk into Nick's and there was like the podium and then behind. A little. Behind it is this little room with a curtain, right? And it's not big at all. And I went to go get paid. My. The week was over and I'm. And I've just, you know, eaten it. Eat. Every single night, every single show. And. And they're all eating. It's like a scene from, like. They're all eating like, you know, manicotti. Couldn't make it any better with the napkins in their. You know, in their shirt like this. And. And I go, hey, nervous as shit. Just. Hey. So, Dom, I need to. If I can get paid, I just. For the, you know, whatever. And Dominic goes to whoever. I can't remember the guy's name. His kind of lackey there. And he goes, whatever his name was, you know, Paulie, go pay the kid. And he's. I've interrupted his dinner. He's not happy. Napkin off. Takes me trudge. We go up to the offices upstairs, and there's a safe, and it's open. And there's cash and there's a gun. This is just open, right? And he gives me. He gets the money and he gives it to me. And I just pick it up. I want to get the fuck out of there. And I pick it up. And he's like, ain't gonna count it? No, I'm good. I trust. I trust you. And I just bolted. I never went back there again. It was. I was so fucking intimidated.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And that was an intimidating place.

[David Cross]

Oh, dude. The whole thing about it, every. The. Dominic, the. All those guys. Yeah, yeah. And everyone's doing blow. And, you know, the performers are at least, you know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It was a maniacal time where all those. There was one time where Nick's was running three consecutive shows. So they had their main room upstairs. There was a dance club down in the bottom. And there was one other room somewhere in that building. And guys would go, like. Guys like Don Gavin, Steve Sweeney, they would go and do a set, a set of set set a set of set. And these guys were just raking in money.

[David Cross]

Oh, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And constantly doing blow.

[David Cross]

No.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And not paying their taxes.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And that's what got them all.

[David Cross]

Yeah, that. Well, they. I mean, back in the Heyday. And it went. It went up for years.

[Bob Odenkirk]

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[David Cross]

It was years and years of this. I mean, you. You could go down, you know, 128 and do Kowloons or whatever and then do. Just hop all the way back. Hop into these Chinese restaurants or whatever.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right? Giggles and sagas.

[David Cross]

Yeah, and just go in a straight line and go back and forth and do nine fucking shows and. And make a shit ton of money. Cash under the table, tons of blow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. And, yeah, it was a wild place because there were so many comics and it was such a. Boston's not a big city, you know, and to have so much comedy all come out. You've seen Fran Solomita's documentary?

[David Cross]

I haven't. I gotta.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's really great.

[David Cross]

Stand up, stood out. Yeah, it's really I gotta.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's really great. It's really great. And it goes all the way back to Crimmins and the dingho. And I. I. That was before my time. I started in 88, so the dingho was already gone. Yeah. You know, you heard legendary stories from the dingho.

[David Cross]

Did you see Call Me Lucky?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No.

[David Cross]

Oh, you got to see that. It's Bobcat's documentary about Barry.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, no, wait a minute. I did see that.

[David Cross]

It's.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's right, I did see that.

[David Cross]

It's really well done. I don't mean just like, if. Even if you don't know Barry, just the story and the way he lays out the. The path of the. The film is. It's great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I had Barry on, like, right after it came out, I had him on the podcast. And, yeah, he's a.

[David Cross]

He's a legend and, you know, huge inspiration.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He was an intimidating guy. Yeah, that was the guy that I was scared of because he was, like. He was the guy who was sort of the standard. Like, he made sure there was no hacks. He made sure there was. You know, like, he set the standard.

[David Cross]

You know, he was really equitable, too.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Yeah. And very politically active, even, like, way back then. Like, really knowledgeable and, like, really understood what was going on in the world.

[David Cross]

And did you ever see his. Or one of his State of the Union shows?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No.

[David Cross]

They're fucking amazing. So he would go. I saw a couple of them at the. The old Stitches, and he would go up, and it was. When the. The State of the Union was happening, he'd go up and he'd do his State of the Union. It was just him. And he would go on and he'd have, like, you know, it was pre PowerPoint, but it was whatever the equivalent of, you know, a screen behind him with stuff. And he'd go up there with a cooler, like a legit big cooler of beer, because that motherfucker could drink. And. And he would just start. He had a podium, and he would just crack beers and just down a case of beer or half a case of beer and just do his stuff, you know, extemporaneous stuff. I mean, stuff prepared, but about, you know, the State of the Union and all that. It was. And it would always be packed, like. And you'd see Dennis Leary and, you know, every single comic would be there, you know, trying up against the Wall, because it was packed, but it was great. I mean, legendary.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, here, I mean, I think he was really responsible for a lot of what Boston comedy became, you know, because he was the guy that was kind of the gold standard and he started the ding Ho.

[David Cross]

Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And he is, like, becoming friends with him was like, who. Like, such a relief because I was so terrified of him. Yeah. When I was a young comic, like, if that guy thought I sucked, if he hated me, I was like, I'm doomed. Yeah. You know, because he was this character. He would go on stage with a sport coat on and reach into his inner pocket and pull out a Budweiser for every show. You remember that?

[David Cross]

I don't, but I mean, I know he drank a lot.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. But he would bring his own beer. It was part of his thing. He would go on stage, just reach into his. Pull out a Budweiser and set it down on the stool.

[David Cross]

I.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You only drink American beer.

[David Cross]

Is that true?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, he would drink Budweiser.

[David Cross]

I wonder why that is.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I don't know. It's like kind of a patriot.

[David Cross]

Hey, I. He doesn't seem like he would. The kind of guy who would have denied himself.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I mean, maybe it was performative. I don't know. Was there Modelo even? Did it exist at the time?

[David Cross]

But yeah, he was. He was the only guy. I would say that. And to your point, like all these other legendary comics, you know, Lenny Clark and Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney and all those guys, it was the only guy that. Those guys were kind of walking on eggshells. Yes, the only guy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes, yes.

[David Cross]

The only guy. They'd give all each other shit, like. And mean shit too.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They would fight.

[David Cross]

Oh, yeah. Barry was the one guy they wouldn't fuck with.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, he was different than all of them and that. He was incredibly well read. Like really well read. Really knowledgeable about all sorts of things with economics and the way the world works, the injustices of our society. But really funny fucking comic to like. Great jokes, great writer, you know, and just like he was the standard. He was the glue that held that scene together. Because they all looked at him to be like. Like, you can't kind of step out of line. Like, you don't want to get catch. Barry's R. Yeah.

[David Cross]

It was absolutely true.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

And then when the revelation he had of being abused as a kid, and then he dedicated. He spoke in front of Congress. He did about aol. Aol.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. That was during the early days of aol for people that don't know, they had all these chat rooms and sexual predators were using these chat rooms to find children.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And also to exchange pornographic material.

[David Cross]

And that was. That was. That Becomes a big part of Call Me Lucky, you know. Right, right. And, yeah, he, like, dedicated his life basically to just going out and catching these.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

And. And helping, you know, the. The people who would pose as kids and stuff. And that was, you know, that was his. And he was also, you know, lapsed Catholic. And when all the. Especially in Boston, the Catholic Church and diocese and all that stuff was coming out, he was. I mean, that was his.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Cross]

Getting these. Caught, you know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Exposed.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I think it took someone like him that was. He was levels above most of the other comedians in terms of his understanding of the world and his ability to articulate it. And also a great comic so that, like, people looked at him like, well, this guy's like, he's clearly smarter than all of us. Is also, like, super dedicated to the craft of comedy. Like, meant a lot to him, like, the integrity of comedy, like, what it is to be a comic, you know.

[David Cross]

And he came from. And I think this is kind of specific to Boston, too. He came from a jock world. He was a minor league or whatever sub. Minor league catcher. He played. He was at Syracuse University and he played for, like, the Cape Cod League and, you know, the things that eventually get to minor leagues, hopefully, but. And he came from that hard drinking, you know, and catcher is arguably the smartest guy in the baseball team. Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He's the guy making the calls for

[David Cross]

the pitches, seeing everything, defensive lineups. So he came from that world, too, which I think helped his cred.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Well, it's just such an unusual town in what happened there that these guys became these local legends where they never had to leave. And they kind of did the same act for decades, which is also kind of crazy.

[David Cross]

That, to me was like. I knew there was definitely a. As I started to separate from that world a little bit and. And just kind of evolving as a comedian. And there was like the catch scene and Catch a rising star. And that was a thing. That was an early. I just didn't get it. Like, why are you doing the same it. There's no joy in it. And then you would drive some of these guys because they get fucked up. And you were happy to have all the work. And you'd go up and do 15 and they do half hour. You get in the car, you go somewhere else and. And these guys doing Mike Dunham. And he would do his member, Rosie the Bounty. The quicker picker upper. The bounty.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Okay. So he had. There was a. So the commercials were like, Rosie. And it was like the scrappy Waitress at a diner. Remember, it was like a character that was in all the. It was like the. The you know, mascot of whatever bounty. The quicker picker upper. And her character was kind of like feisty, as in these commercials ran for years. You know, different. Like, ah, you don't do this, do this. And his bit was about taking a gun out and shooting her. And it was funny. You'd see it the first time, but it's like, dude, that hasn't been on the air in fucking 10 years and he's still doing this. Yeah, Rosie, I got something for you. I got a. I got some advice for you. Like, what the fuck? And there was. Okay, wait, Joe, did you. Were you there? So Ed the Machine Regime.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, yeah, I remember him. So he wear the suit.

[David Cross]

Yep. Well, yeah. And his headshot was four different. His headshot was like four squares and then he.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Different characters.

[David Cross]

Yep. Tina Turner and guy. The. The like mob guy. I can't remember the rest of them. And then, you know, whatever.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I think he had a turban in one of them.

[David Cross]

I'm sure he did. So he goes to jail for rolling back odometers. Odometers, yes. He gets caught and he was, you know, car salesman, I think, out of. In Rhode Island, I believe, and he got caught rolling back to your donors. He goes to jail for a year and a half. And I. I was shooting this movie. This is decades later. I was shooting this movie. And it was on a cruise ship. And the cruise ship, Ed the Machine Regime is the headliner at the comedy venue on the cruise ship. And I'm like, oh, that's crazy. I haven't seen this guy in forever. And he's. He's back doing comedy. Okay. And I go there and he does, I don't know, 40 minutes, the same fucking act from 15 years ago. It's like, you don't have one. You spent 18 months in prison. You don't have one joke. You don't have one motherfucking observation. Even if you lie and say, you know. You know, it'd be weird if you were in prison and whatever you had, you don't have anything.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's weird. It was a weird thing. And it only existed with them. Yeah, most comics in the country were writing new material all the time.

[David Cross]

It was. I remember that feeling of, I must be different because I'm not. I don't. That is such a distasteful thing. Like, I wouldn't want to do that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, there was two. I saw two traps there. One of them was that and the other one was never leaving. Yeah, they never left Boston. And when they did leave Boston, they had so much local material that their act was like cut down by like 40%.

[David Cross]

And there were a lot of people, their peers who would give them shit. Like. And it was all just kind of resentful jealousy. Small minded, small town, kind of like, oh, you think you're better than us? Which is a Boston thing too.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That.

[David Cross]

Oh, you think you're so. You think you're so hot now that you. You're hot shot. You go. You get some. You go to Hollywood. You go there. Yeah, you. This is, you know, it was a real provincial, working class kind of.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Attitude, you know, they look down on and, you know, they would give Leary all the time, you know, like, sellout. This is bullshit. Weird.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Sellout's a weird one. Because they would all sold out. It just wasn't available. Well, they were all mad at Steven Wright. Yeah. Because so Steven Wright was like this.

[David Cross]

How can you get mad at Steven? Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, not mad at him, but bitter because of his success. Because he went and left. Yeah. Yeah, he went and left. Did. The Tonight show became huge. So unusual, so different. And they came to Boston. The Tonight show came to Boston to look for comics and Steven Wright was the one they chose. And all these other guys were like, he's a middle act. Like, this is like that guy bombs half the time. Because is that his act to me was a lot like Hedberg in that if you didn't know what he was doing and you came to see specific. Like if Hedberg. There's a famous story of Hedberg was on the road in Ohio and they had this guy who was an opening act who'd do like backflips and sing rap songs. And it was. It was a disaster. And Hedberg kept bombing. And so they switched them and made Hedberg the middle act and tried to fuck him on the money. And Stanhope got into it with the owner of the club and became a big thing. But once Hedberg got an audience, then people knew what they were coming to see. And then he was amazing. And then everybody wanted to see that. That was kind of the same with Steven Wright. Like, if you expected. If you're on a show with Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark and all these big energy fucking Boston guys. And then, you know, I used to work at a fire hydrant factory. Couldn't park anywhere near the place, you know, like it just for whatever reason, you know.

[David Cross]

Well, it's also that other comedy is. And I'm not taking anything away from those guys. And the, the bits were great, but the, that other comedy is a little easier. It just. You get it. Yes. And Stephen Wright, you got to think, think about it for a second.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It was abstract, it was low key, it was all non sequiturs. It was one to another. It was. And so when he left and took off, a lot of guys apparently were like, this is like, when's my turn gonna happen?

[David Cross]

Yeah, I, I can see that easily.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Yeah. I mean, that was, it was so. I mean, no other scene had that kind of weird, provincial, you know, and that thing. Like you said they wouldn't leave.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, they never left. Well, they were huge there, so if they lived there, they could make like. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. People always ask me what my website is powered by. And the answer is Squarespace. Their design tools are unmatched. You don't have to be a tech wizard to build something that actually looks professional and fits your brand. They've even got an AI powered website builder that lets you put together a full, fully custom site in just a few steps. Try it for yourself. Head to squarespace.com rogan for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, just use the offer code rogan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This episode is brought to you by Visible. Let's be honest. Wireless can feel like a world of traps, expensive bills tacked on, fees and promises that just don't hold up. You start to feel stuck. Don't fall for the trap. Escape Divisible, the ultimate wireless hack. Get unlimited data and hotspot Powered by Verizon One line for just $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Get great coverage and a reliable connection with Visible. Plus, for a limited time, new members can get the Visible plan for just $20 a month for one year using code Fresh Start. Refresh your wireless with Visible switch [e-mail] terms apply. Limited time offers subject to change. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. A couple hundred thousand dollars a year just running around and cash.

[David Cross]

Easy. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And not ever have to worry about anything. And they played golf all day. So there's two things that scared me. One of them was golf. Because I saw that when you play golf, you kind of stop trying with your comedy.

[David Cross]

It's a slippery slope. It's a gateway drug.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, it's your. You're out there for fucking eight hours a day. Like Noxie was always playing golf. And then the Other thing was like, if, if you never left, you had no chance of developing like a national audience where you could go to a club in Philadelphia. You can go to a club, they couldn't do the Road. And I remember thinking, oh, this is a trap.

[David Cross]

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and as you said, they. Half of their standup was like, you'd have to know about, you know, Storo Drive or fucking Johnny Most, you know Johnny Most?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Remember, Donovan's been about Johnny Most. It was amazing. But it was like he was doing that bit long after Johnny Most was dead. So like 20 people in the audience would be howling, laughing, and everybody else like, who the is Johnny Most?

[David Cross]

God.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, it was, it was weird because it was like a velvet prison. It was like how I describe, like really great comics that get jobs in the writer's room. And I'm like, you got to be careful. Like, that's a velvet prison. Because if you get stuck in that writer's room and you never do the road, you never put out specials, you're never going to get an audience. You're always going to be beholden to an employer. You're always going to have to have a job. And there's great comics that got trapped with that.

[David Cross]

But wouldn't you say that if they. Yes, it's a trap, but if they didn't have the wherewithal or foresight or willpower to get out of that trap, then they probably weren't meant to do that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Perhaps. But sometimes they get a mortgage and then they get a family and then they're stuck.

[David Cross]

That's the trap. Yeah, Family, let's call it for what it is.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's a trap. And, well, in a lot of ways it can be. If you're trying to be an actual national level. Like. Do you know Owen smith, comic in LA?

[David Cross]

No.

[Bob Odenkirk]

One of the top 20 best comics on earth. He's fucking brilliant. He's so funny.

[David Cross]

Owen Smith.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Owen Smith, okay. Saw him at the Comedy Store and I remember the first time I saw him at the Comedy Store. I'm like, how is this guy not fucking huge? He's so funny. He's so good. He's like. He has this bit about adopting a white kid and naming him the N word. It's just like really. It's a really funny, well crafted bit. Like all of his bits are like brilliantly written. He's a great performer. He's super likable. Got writers gigs and just. He does the mothership a couple times a year, I believe, at least Once a year. But just doesn't get out there.

[David Cross]

Who does he write or what?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I think he's a showrunner now.

[David Cross]

Oh, well.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So it took it to another level.

[David Cross]

Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But, you know, just got jobs writing when he was struggling as a comic. And those jobs eventually led to a house and.

[David Cross]

But maybe he, you know, was like, I. You. You watch him and you love him, Right. Because you see a lot of stand up and you're like, a lot of it's shit. And this guy's fucking great. Great writer. But maybe he doesn't see it that way. And he's quite happy to.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I think he does. He does see it that way. I've talked to him about it. Yeah. He kind of knows. He just doesn't know what to do now because he's a showrunner.

[David Cross]

You're.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's making money.

[David Cross]

Yeah. And there's a lot of responsibility.

[Bob Odenkirk]

There's also not a lot of shows anymore.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Which is. It's a real problem.

[David Cross]

It's a real problem.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Banked on being a showrunner in the 90s. And that's what you, you know, threw your hat into. And then all of a sudden that thing seems to have dwindled to like 20% of what used to be.

[David Cross]

It's. Yeah, it's. I used to be quite happy with the idea that I knew, you know, back in the day, when you're pitching shows and stuff and trying to develop things and you go, this. Let's not waste our time going to these five places. This is not a show for them. This is a show for these three places. Let's. This is this kind of show. Now. I have no clue. I, you know, come up with like, Bob and I pitched a show, sold the pitch. There was like, even. There were like four. We. I think we pitch it at eight places. Four of them kind of bid. We took what we thought was the best deal and then wrote the. It was a limited series, eight episodes. Wrote the first four. And it was Bob and his brother Bill, who's big Simpsons guy. And it was good. And then they said the quote was marketing and analytics couldn't. That's a quote. Couldn't figure it out what to do with the show. And so they didn't. And we. And we had four episodes that you could look at. And then we had the bible for the next four and the outlines and everything was. And it was funny on the page. It was funny. Then we're like, so here's the cast. We're gonna have these amazing people and Bob and I. As different cult leaders. And, And that's such a rare thing when it starts off on the page. Funny. And by the time you get a great cast and then you get on set, you're like, what if we do this? And then you get into the post and start playing around with it? I mean, it's just, it was a really cool thing. And yeah, marketing and analytics, that's what you're dealing with now.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I mean, that has kind of always at least been the case.

[David Cross]

Well, not anal. I mean, they, they would have to say. I mean, analytics is technical. I mean, marketing. I, I don't know how to help you, man. I can give you some advice. I don't. You know, I think that's a shitty way to market it. But you know the, you know that world. And, but analytics is about the algorithm and all that is this recent.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, okay.

[David Cross]

Yeah, right after. Shortly after Covid.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's amazing how many incredibly unimpressive people are responsible for putting out shows. The people that you communicate with of the executives. You're like, this has got to be a mistake. Like, how did you get this job? And I experienced that early on, like at the first pilot that I was on. The first pilot was on Hardball. The pilot was actually very funny because it was written by Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran. They're from the Simpsons. And they also wrote on Married with Children. Great guys. But they were writers. They were like these like quiet, kind of soft spoken guys. And you know, they ran the pilot and then they brought in a showrunner from Coach. Remember that show, Coach? Yeah. And this guy. Just the whole show and turned it into this, like, it was like this clunky bad joke, like, really happens more than you think. And the people behind the scenes, like the executives, it was astonishing how little of them had any creative ideas. It was, they were just hoping that it would work. And ego. It's like ego. And I'm an executive, so I'll tell you what's good and what's not good. And we understand this because we're Fox. And yeah, I was like, this is nuts. Like, this is, this is how it works behind the scene. I thought you'd get behind the scene and be all these geniuses that had put together all these television shows. They had an understanding of like, how let people be creative and put a, put a show together and let it, let it run out in the. The runs. Like when you're running through the script

[David Cross]

like it's like a little boy who thought the war.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes. Everybody learned finally, they're gonna figure it out. Yeah. Very naive.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But I naively stumbled into that exact right thing with news radio. Right. So when I got onto news radio,

[David Cross]

which I would say some of those execs that you're describing, they probably stumbled into.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes.

[David Cross]

The success of it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, you know, Paul Sims, who's brilliant, was coming from the Larry Sanders Show. Yep. So Larry Sanders show. Huge success, genius show. And so they knew this guy was special and super smart guy, like, funny, and had a great group of writers and put together a great pilot, and then, you know, recast the one role that I came in for. And so I'm there on the set, and it was like, you know, it took long hours to figure it out, but they let everybody do whatever they wanted to do. Like, Paul's approach was so different than anybody else. Like, Dave Foley was, like, the secret producer of, like, half of that show. Half of the way the scenes were put together, half of the jokes that were in, it was all Dave Foley on set, running through the script with the cast, coming up with better ideas. Oh, I didn't know that they let you do anything. Like, sometimes they'd say, can we see it as written? And then you'd give it to them as written, and they'd be like, I like your idea better. Like, they. Paul was.

[David Cross]

That's great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Amazing with that. Yeah. And so once I did that, I was like, I think I'm done with this, because I don't think it's ever going to be any better than this.

[David Cross]

It's rare, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, it was super rare. I. I auditioned for, like, one or two other ones that were terrible just because I wanted money, you know, And I'm like. And I'm like, maybe it'll be okay. But hell is being on a sitcom that's terrible, that's successful, that sounds dumb to people. Like, no, you're gonna totally know what you do. You're on TV making $50,000 a week or whatever. You're making, like, poor you. But no, you're. You're in hell because you're doing something that sucks, and you have to show up every day doing this thing when, you know you could have been on Seinfeld or you. If you just got cast on Friends,

[David Cross]

That's a trap, too, you know, Is like, the people who. You know if. Because it really is, like, a job, and you'll. You may have a really nice house, right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

And you have a nice car, but, you know, you're. You're getting. You know, you're in Studio City and you get in your car and you drive to the. This job and it's kind of shitty and sucks, but there's amenities, great craft services, makes fucking frappuccinos right there, you know, and. And then you go and have dinner with somebody fancy somewhere and then you just get up and do the same thing over and over again.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. And you keep buying things because that's how you reward yourself. You buy a new television, this one's even bigger, you know, you buy a new car. I got the new car, you know, and you're. That's what you're doing to reward yourself for doing this job. That sucks.

[David Cross]

What? I get that too. I mean, I will on a much smaller scale, but when I, when I make a good payday, I'll buy some expensive boxes of baseball cards.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, you're a baseball card collector? That's the thing. Oh, interesting.

[David Cross]

Yeah. But have been going back. It's not like I feel like I

[Bob Odenkirk]

have legit, you know, baseball street cred.

[David Cross]

Yes, yes. But that's the thing. And also it's, it's. I mean, the argument can be made. It's an investment. A shitty investment.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

But an investment nonetheless. But it's also like gambling because it's like a scratch off ticket because everybody's chasing the one of one cards and you're opening the packs and stuff.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, that's how you do it. You buy packs unopened.

[David Cross]

I buy boxes. Yeah. So I buy a hobby box, which has a better. It's more expensive. It has a better chance of. Well, that is more like auto rookie cards or relic cards.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But those are. That is an investment though, because you could always sell them. People always want them.

[David Cross]

Yes. I. I just mean since I started, you know. God, 30 years ago. 40 years ago. Yeah, 30. Like in the 90s. Early 90s, maybe. 80. No, 89. 89. So whatever money I put in is. There's nowhere near if I sold everything. I mean, it's talking about half the money I put in. But I have them and I like them and I'm not, I'm not gonna sell them. I have.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So that's your reward? That's my reward, yeah.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

My thing was in my poverty days, it was comic books. So one of my.

[David Cross]

Which is also an investment.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, well, it became one eventually. But when. During my poverty days, my biggest, saddest moment was when I had to sell my comic books because I had no money. Yeah, I had no money and I had these old Spider Mans and these old Incredible Hulks Yeah.

[David Cross]

Which were probably now worth.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, my God, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. I had some old really good ones in the plastic sleeve.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I keep them in the. Be very careful pulling them out, opening them up. Oh, I love comic books, and I had collected them since I was a child.

[David Cross]

Oh, that's a bummer, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. That's what I did.

[David Cross]

Is that your thing?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, that's what I. Oh, I didn't know when I was a kid.

[David Cross]

Any of this. Any of that stuff yours?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, no, no. None of that stuff is mine. All the artwork.

[David Cross]

But you are. You do?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes.

[David Cross]

Oh, wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Cool. Yeah. Well, I haven't in a long time, but I was really. Yeah, I could still draw. I can still draw a little, but it's like.

[David Cross]

But if you want to do your own comic book. Yeah, you could do that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I would have to start practicing again and get. But when I was a teenager, I was really good and that was what I wanted to do. But I had a really terrible art teacher in high school. He was just a fucking. Just a miserable guy. Just miserable. And is like, you're not going to get that job. Like, you know, I'm like, what? Like, you can't just draw what you want. I'm like, what do you. Why not?

[David Cross]

It's like a Dan Close thing. Have you read Art School Confidential?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No.

[David Cross]

Oh, you know Dan Clowes, right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I know he is.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

His stuff is fucking genius, too. I've used that word too many times.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's okay. There's a lot of geniuses out there.

[David Cross]

There aren't that many.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I want to be Search around.

[David Cross]

I want to be judicious with him. But yeah, his. So he's the guy who did eight Ball and then he's got. He did Ghost World turned into a movie. And then there was another one that was Wilson that was turned into a movie. His stuff is great, but he has a thing about art, you know, shitty teachers, art school teachers. He has a comic story.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I was. I quit on my last year in high school. I stopped doing art just because my teacher was so bad. And then there was this one guy in my class that I recently reconnected with, this guy John Devore, who was the best artist in the class. There was me, this guy Kevin and John, and we were the best artists in the class. I was probably like third best, but John was the best. And John got an F his last year from this guy. And I gave you a F. He's like, that Guy was such a. We were going back and forth.

[David Cross]

Was he. Was it about purity or what was the.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, no. He was terrible. He wasn't a good artist. He was.

[David Cross]

But he was just miserable.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He was miserable. He was like this thin man with a big pot belly. So I think he just drank himself to sleep every night.

[David Cross]

And he was just easy, easy, easy. Hey, you get too close.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He was just sad. He was just a sad guy.

[David Cross]

What was his justification? Justification for saying, this isn't any good, or you get an F. If I

[Bob Odenkirk]

had to be honest, I think he hated potential.

[David Cross]

Right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Because he hated John. And if he hated John, like, John was genius, he was brilliant. And John wound up not being an artist either.

[David Cross]

How many examples of that? Yeah, kids, talent or dreams or aspirations are kind of crushed and eat to the point of like, it's not worth it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, I don't want to deal with this. Well, it's like bad teachers. Bad teachers can really ruin your life. And good teachers can change your life.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, I had a teacher in middle school that gave me one thought that has been. That stuck with me like my whole life. When I was. I guess I was like 13. And he. He was a science teacher and he was talking about space. He goes. And he was just saying, I just want you to sit here and comprehend. When we're in this classroom, I want you to comprehend the concept of infinity, that the universe is infinite, that there is no end. Just hurt your head, lie in bed at night and think about how it goes on and on and there's no ending to it. And we were all in class, like, 13, going, what the fuck, man? I mean, it was the way he said it. I'm not doing it justice. Because he was like kind of a spooky guy who went to Vietnam. He was like grizzled fucking dude who's like. But brilliant. And that guy, like that one thought I carry with me all the time,

[David Cross]

especially at 13, too. You know, it's because you're. You're about to start losing sight of those. The. The importance that those concepts will have.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Just dismiss them and go, yeah, yeah, it's big. Whatever. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This guy birthed my fascination with space at 13. I don't think I was even interested in space before then. And then I became absolutely fascinated by it. I just couldn't get my hand enough books about cosmology and space travel and. Yeah. But this guy that was his art teacher was just. I think he just. Life didn't turn out the way he wanted it to. And he wanted to squash the hopes and dreams of talented people.

[David Cross]

Yeah, I think that's.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Unfortunately, that's a real thing.

[David Cross]

Yeah, it's. It's more common than you hope for. Yeah, I think that's. That's a very real, you know, very real thing, unfortunately.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So that was my dream. My dream was to be a comic book illustrator. So when I was a young kid, from the time I was like, God, like 6 or 7 when I lived in San Francisco, I would collect all these different comic books. That was what I would do.

[David Cross]

I would just go that San Francisco was the. What's the. You know, the counterculture comic. They were like the big R. Crumb.

[Bob Odenkirk]

R. Crumb. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Cross]

But there was like a publisher, right? That's famous.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. God, I don't think of. Yeah, I do know what you're thinking of. I can't remember the name of it, but I was really interested. I really loved like the old creepy and eerie comic books too.

[David Cross]

Do you know what my grandmom did? Oh, it's gonna hurt your feelings. My. I had. My uncle who eventually went insane. Was a huge. EC Comics. Right. Early. I don't know. But all the EC stuff and then, you know, early MAD magazine stuff. But he had this collection and I was probably eight maybe, and I had expressed interest in these. You know, can I. Not thinking in terms of investment, just can I have them? I like them and they're. And I would sit and read them and they're really cool. And they're creepy, you know, and they're scary. Some of them are scary. And. And she. I don't. I think she just threw him away. Like original. And I'm gonna guess. I don't know, but I'm gonna guess like a quarter of a million dollars worth. Throw em away. They're just comics.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They were so good. I love those old black and white, like really, like deeply illustrated, like super creepy,

[David Cross]

like.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Weird Science. Tales from the Crypt. Vault of Horror. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Those were great.

[David Cross]

Look at that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Some of them were really gory.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Oh, keeper.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Tales from the Crypt. Yeah. That stuff was like. When I was a kid.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Holy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Those were incredible.

[David Cross]

It was like. Do you remember seeing Twilight Zone when you were a kid? Sure. Blowing your mind. Like, wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You think about the early Twilight Zone. How many premises they went over, like how many different brilliant premises they had in the early Twilight Zone that.

[David Cross]

Yeah. That have been, you know, stolen completely.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, yeah. Over and over and over again. Yeah. But so, like, so genius and creative.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The William Shackner one when he's in the diner and the. The little machine that is giving him fortunes, they all turn out to be true.

[David Cross]

I don't remember that one.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, my God, there were so many good ones. How about the. The Burgess Meredith one where he just wants to be alone with books.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And there's a nuclear bomb and he's like, finally. And then he breaks his glasses. Yeah.

[David Cross]

Yep. And the. The one. The. What is it called? Situation on Main street or something like that, where they. There's. It's so genius and ahead of its time. Where there's a. You know, it's a suburban street and the lights go out or something goes out. And then eventually all the neighbors are at each other's throats accusing each other of this thing. And then the very. And they're all like. And then they start getting guns. And at the very. And you're watching the whole thing unfold. And then at the very end, here it is.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Monsters are due on Maple Street.

[David Cross]

The monsters are due on Maple Street. Yeah. And it. So they're talking about these monsters that are, you know, and who are the monsters? And it's. They all become suspicious. Yeah. The lights are out and eventually you pull away from this whole thing. And it's two aliens in a, you know, flying saucer. And they're. Yeah, there it is. And they're going, this is how we'll take over street by street by street. And this is how we'll do it. You don't have to go in there, guns a blazing. They'll kill themselves. And it's like, how far ahead of time was that?

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's genius.

[David Cross]

And the Divide and Conquer and the To Serve Mankind.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That was a great one. Yeah. It's a cookbook. Yeah. There's so many amazing premises. There was like, no duds. If you go back and watch the Twilight Zone, even today, like, it's all brilliant.

[David Cross]

There's one I remember that was a dud. That was a dud that I remember, I haven't seen in a long time. But it's a. It's. It's either really, really, really cold. And there's this poor family in a, you know, New York City, and they can't get heat or it's really, really hot and they can't get cold. And they're dealing with people who are like, you know, in the family who are really sick. And then the twist was. It's like, oh, it's really. It's somebody who has a fever and they're not. It Just wasn't that good.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, they're allowed one dud.

[David Cross]

That's the one.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I don't think I ever saw that one. But I remember so many of them were so creative.

[David Cross]

Oh, amazing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's kind of nuts if you think about it, because it was completely original. Nothing like that existed before for it.

[David Cross]

Yep.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And they. It was like this open field that was rich with premises and they just took all the good ones.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then everybody afterwards, like, it's like. Like, don't. Like south park always does jokes about, like, Simpsons already covered something. Like, they always joke around about, like how the Simpsons have kind of covered so many premises because they've, you know, they've been around since. God. The Simpsons was when I was in fucking high school.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Like 30 years. Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

least more than that. When was the. When did the Simpsons first come on fox?

[David Cross]

It was Tracy Ullman show.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right. What year was that? 86. 86. It was right after I got 86 that I was a tiny, tiny kid and I had only called him the family. So I kind of remember that. So I graduated in 85. So it was right after high school. And the Simpsons are still on the air. Yeah. Nuts. Oh, do you remember the 87?

[David Cross]

Do you remember the Twilight Zone where the. There's the real pompous guy. There's like a men's club kind of thing. Whatever. And there's this real loud mouth pompous guy. And this other guy's like, you know. You know, would you shut up? You can't. I bet you can't go. I bet you can't stop talking for a year or whatever. A month. I can't remember what it is. And the guy's like, absolutely. I'll bet you $100,000 you can't go one month without talking. He's like, I'll take that bet. And they basically create like this little kind of cage in this men's club. And he spends a month and he's not talking and he's, you know. And then they turns out the guy can't pay him. He didn't have the money to begin with to pay off the bet because the guy goes the full month or year or whatever, and it turns out that the guy who made that bet, who's not going to talk for a year, also desperately needed the money and had his tongue cut out.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, Jesus Christ.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, I do remember that.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, God.

[David Cross]

I think of these things as kids. And of course, the cornfield. I'll banish you to the cornfield you know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. It's just amazing that. Well, if you stop and think about how new television was back then, I mean, television was only a couple decades old back then.

[David Cross]

Barely.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, if that. Like, what. What year was the Twilight Zone? What was the premiere? Sterling. Yeah. 67.

[David Cross]

No, earlier. I'm gonna say 59.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah. Is it 59?

[David Cross]

I got on the. I got it exact.

[Bob Odenkirk]

October 2nd, 1959. Damn, son.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Pretty good. Wow.

[David Cross]

Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So if you think about it, television, when did it start? What was like the first television programs? Was it the 30s?

[David Cross]

I think it was Real Housewives of Yonkers. I think it was Real Housewives of Yonkers.

[Bob Odenkirk]

As if they could watch some of these reality shows today, they'd be like, what the. The did we do?

[David Cross]

Yes, I think so. Wait, Andy Cohen. What? Who?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Why? How. What is this

[David Cross]

the first. It was the. It was. Wasn't it like the. The. Where they would do plays? What? You know what I mean? Like.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I Love Lucy was on. It was on and done before this even started.

[David Cross]

Well, the Honeymooners, Right? That would have been.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What year was that? That was 51 to 57. Here's like a list of shows that were on before.

[David Cross]

Yeah, I just asked. Honeymooners was huge.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Alfred Hitchcock Presents was on before that. So what was the first television? 1920s. 1920s.

[David Cross]

No,

[Bob Odenkirk]

the Queen's Messenger.

[David Cross]

BBC. Early US scripted TV show, crap television theater. That's what I was thinking of. Where they would do plays, you know, and it was sponsored. Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Live drama anthology usually treated as the start of the first golden age of television. Howdy Doody, 1947, right after the war.

[David Cross]

Ed Sullivan Show. Wow. Yeah. And then the first. Oh, your show shows. Wow. How about that?

[Bob Odenkirk]

1950.

[David Cross]

I love Lucy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Wow.

[David Cross]

Father Knows Best.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Today's show still on.

[David Cross]

Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Did you guys ever talk about doing more Mr. Shows?

[David Cross]

We did like a revival. Ish thing on.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It was a great show, man. Well, thank you. It was very original. I love how things just streamed into another thing.

[David Cross]

Yeah, that was hard. That was hot.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I would imagine.

[David Cross]

Biggest pain. If you ever see us, you see an episode and we are pulling out of a bumper sticker or pulling out of sign on a desk. That means we spent two motherfucking days yelling at each other, trying to figure out a transition and just going, fuck it, nobody gives a shit. You know? And we tried not to do that, but we occasionally were just like, move on, we're wasting our time. You know?

[Bob Odenkirk]

But it wasn't a waste of time. It was so. It was brilliant. Like, the people that watched it appreciated it because you could feel, feel this thing about it. Like this was new, this was different. Like, you, you'd taken a creative chance that was unique.

[David Cross]

And you know, part of the success of it, I think there's two things. One is, you know, it was all live and we did, we, you know, we would show the videos of the little films to the audience. And so any laughs there was never sweetening any of the laughs you. You hear from the audience. And we got it. By the time we were like kind of towards the end of the second series, we got it down to. We could shoot a show in 44 minutes, you know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Wow.

[David Cross]

Yeah, because it was, you know, we wouldn't, you wouldn't have to do it twice. Often we'd get it, you know, and our stop down. We got really good at super quick, you know, stage shifts and stop downs and stuff. And yeah, we were, we were, we got good. We got. And that keeps the energy up and the kind of flow of everything. So that was helpful in that. And we also didn't do a lot of reoccurring characters. We did a two or three that pop up occasionally, but it's all like, you know, and it wasn't like a real person. We did, we do. It's, it's about, you know, it wouldn't be about Paris Hilton. It'd be about the idea of a rich girl who gets famous for being on re. You know what I mean? It wouldn't be so, so like you watch some of those SNLs and like, who, what, who is this person?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right.

[David Cross]

And you didn't, you don't get it. You don't get the bit because you don't get the.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, because as you watch it in the future, those people aren't relevant anymore.

[David Cross]

Yeah. And you don't even know what it was. You can't remember.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right. Because it's so topical. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was just. You guys were doing something different and it's hard to do something different in a sketch show.

[David Cross]

Yeah, yeah. But HBO was responsible for that. They said, you know, in very clear terms, like, we don't want you to be conventional. This is hbo and this is back when they're trying to get in identity. Identity for themselves. And they're like, we want you to do stuff that you can't do on NBC or Fox or whatever. We want you to, you know, help us make a distinction, you know. Great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Did you enjoy the process?

[David Cross]

Oh, very much so. It was, I mean, A lot of laughs, A lot of it was hard. And, you know, initially there was a. There was a definite market change when Bob met his. Who, the woman who had become his wife and had kids, like, he just mellowed completely, you know, and. But before that, he was fucking driven. And I wasn't. I was. I was a goofball. And I wanted to work and I wanted to, you know, had all these ideas, but I was very much like, hey, guys, it's five o'. Clock. I think the bar is gonna be open in a minute. Like, I was, let's go. You know, and. And he was just super driven, you know, and we had long, long, long days. And then when we did in the third season, we did produced and, you know, helped out in all aspects of production with Tenacious D and those shorts. And so there was just no downtime. And I remember there was 38 days where we worked full days non stop without any break. And I just wasn't that kind of person. I was going crazy. Like, I just need to go have a Saturday, you know, or it was. It was. That part was hard. All worth it. No complaints. And, you know, there's a point of

[Bob Odenkirk]

diminishing returns, though, like, where you dry yourself out creatively, too.

[David Cross]

Yes. And I've run other rooms. Like, I've done shows since then. And a valuable lesson I learned when you're just kind of running a writer's room is when you're at that place. And it's exactly like you said, diminishing returns. You're not getting any work done. Your brain isn't. It's foggy. I was very quick to go, all right, guys, let's go. Put your pens down, put your. Fold your computer up. We're gonna go walk around the. We're just gonna go outside and walk around. Let's go get a coffee. Let's do anything. Let's work. We're getting out of here and we'll walk around. Don't worry about it. We'll come back in 35 minutes and we'll, you know, see what we got.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And that's very good for you.

[David Cross]

Yeah, it is.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Most writers, like, I was actually talking to Brian Simpson about that last night. He was like, I get my best because Brian has been walking a lot. He recently had a heart attack. Unfortunately, he's fine, but he almost wasn't. And so now he's dedicated himself to walking. He's walking a lot every day. And he's like, when I go on my walks, like, so many ideas come to Me, I'm sitting at home staring at my computer. Nothing's going on. I go on a walk and all of a sudden ideas are firing when I'm.

[David Cross]

I'm in the process. This will be my fifth time that I've done this thing that I've been doing to get new material for a tour. And I. So I do these things called shooting the shit, seeing what sticks. And they're all in Brooklyn and they're all either walkable or I can ride my bike to every one of these venues. And mostly I'll just walk and I'll. I just go, okay, clear out. Clear out my head and think about the stuff I want to talk about and think of. And also, I live in New York, so there's constant shit happening that I can observe, you know, and it's. It's the best. The best thing for me, you know, to come up with new material and stuff that. Just think about it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Like I was saying, when I was a kid, when I was driving limos, that's when I would come up with my best material because I was. No radio. You can't listen to radio because you have clients in the car. So you're just driving. Yeah. And just doing a thing, and your mind just starts to wander and you.

[David Cross]

Yep.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Ideas come.

[David Cross]

No cell phones. No. None of that. Yeah, it's. It's important.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, the news radio guys would do something totally different. They would stay up late. That was their whole thing.

[David Cross]

That's. That's. That's not.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Their whole thing was sleep deprivation. Their whole thing was they would play video games. Like, those motherfuckers got me hooked on Quake because they remember Quake. You remember that?

[David Cross]

That was the first one with the Unreal engine.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Well, Unreal is a different. That's a different game you're thinking about.

[David Cross]

No, no. It was called Unreal Tournament.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Trust me.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. I'm a dork. Listen, Unreal is a totally different engine. ID Software was a different company. ID Software was created with John Carmack and John Romero. They came up with D Doom, and then they came up with Quake afterwards. So there was a completely different engine. They were the first ones. Wolf, Castle, Wolfenstein was the first 3D shooter, and then Doom was the big one.

[David Cross]

Clearly. Know your. I thought it was. I. The Unreal engine was the first use for Unreal the game. Right, Got it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Totally different company. Totally different game. Different dynamics, different. It was very different game. Great game.

[David Cross]

All right. I got it. Jesus Christ. This guy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Great game. You want to know where the name Doom came from. Yeah, the scene in the Color of Money with Tom Cruise where Tom Cruise shows up at this pool hall and there's this local hot shot player and the guy's beating everybody. And Tom Cruise is sitting there with a pool cue case and he's waiting to play this guy. He's like, what you got in the case? He goes, oh, in here. And he opens up, he goes, doom.

[David Cross]

Doom.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh yeah, that's it. He said, yeah, let's play. That's it. So what they wanted to do with the video game industry was the same like that, that was like their moment. Like, this is Doom for you guys.

[David Cross]

That was. Well, it was, I mean, I, that was my first experience ever with realizing the sun was coming up and I'd been playing this thing for eight hours.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Do you, you know Mark Cohen? All right, so Mark, when Mark was living in New York and he had Doom and I would go, I wasn't living there. I would like crash at his place and Tiny, I'd be like, can I, can I play Doom? And you know, I would, he would go to bed and wake up and I'd be on, still playing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Dude, you want to know how addicted I was? I had a T1 line installed in my house. So I, I had to have. They have to chew up the street and install like a business Internet line into my house. 1990. But where are you seven? I was living in California, in Bell Canyon. And they, they had to do work on my street because there was no high speed Internet available where I lived. I could get an ISDN line which was only like 124k. It sucked. You get too much lag. So I started with 56k or 50, what was it, 54k, 56k? Whatever. It was dial up terrible. And then I got isdn. Not good enough. And I'm like, what else is available? And they're like, well, you can get a T1 line, but this was for

[David Cross]

the president, thousand dollars a month.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I was like, let's go. Because I was, I had sitcom money, I was single, I was living by myself.

[David Cross]

And they had to tear up your street.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They had to tear up my street and install a T1 line in my house.

[David Cross]

Hey, what are you doing? I'm trying to get in my driveway. What's going on? Oh, this guy wants to play Doom.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But it was, this was Quake 2 at the time. And it was so good. The, the Internet was so good that I could host my own server. So I had my own game server. So like people could come and play this Quake game off of my machine.

[David Cross]

Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So I would have no latency and other people would have some late. Especially if people had like 56k.

[David Cross]

Well, I remember the, the. When it started going.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, that was me back in the early, early days.

[David Cross]

Look at that monitor.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, that's what we played on these big ass monitors. And we'd set up local area networks. So the, the writers of News Radio are the ones that got me hooked on this because I didn't play any video games. And I would go to visit them in the writers room like, what are you guys doing? And they're like, we're playing Quake. I go, what is Quake? And watch them play. I'm like, oh my God, this is incredible. And you put on the headphones and it's like you realize it's 3D sound like, oh my God.

[David Cross]

Were you a GoldenEye guy?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, I was only. I only played Quake. I was only like a first person shooter guy. I got so addicted to it. And the fact that you could just go online.

[David Cross]

GoldenEye was. I mean, I'm talking about the co op.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I know what it is.

[David Cross]

Yeah, that was first person shooter.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right. But it was like real world physics. I wasn't interested in that. Like with Quake, you could rocket jump. So you could press your rocket down the ground, blow up, and you'd go flying through the air. It was fucking amazing.

[David Cross]

Do you remember? I want to say,

[Bob Odenkirk]

oh, fuck

[David Cross]

red. Or the first one where you could, your bullets and shit could affect the environment. Like you could blow out a wall. You know what I mean?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. I don't know what that was.

[David Cross]

I want to say it was like it took place on Mars or like a Martian mining thing. But it was the first time you could go, oh, shit, I can blow up this edge of the wall and it'll crumble on the guy. You know, as opposed to just bullets and stuff.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, you could use the environment as a red faction.

[David Cross]

I believe that was it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, there you go.

[David Cross]

That was the one where I had to quit.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It was a problem. We set up a local area network at our old studio in LA a few years back. And I played so much that I was like, I gotta stop. I have to stop.

[David Cross]

Do your kids play?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, they play little games like, they'll play like Roblox and stuff like that. One of my kids.

[David Cross]

Roblox. You know about the chat do now?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like predators are.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Kids through Roblox.

[David Cross]

Yeah, that's a big thing at our school.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, weird, man. Yeah, it's weird how many fucking creeps there are out there in the world.

[David Cross]

Well, my. Thankfully, my daughter, who's 9. How old are your kids?

[Bob Odenkirk]

15 and 17 of the youngest ones.

[David Cross]

Okay, so. So they're. Pass. They're. They're. Yeah, they're safe. They got. They get. They're good. Yeah. But so, so we had a. My daughter is way into Minecraft, which I have no problem with. It's great. And she plays with her friends. They play online and help each other build things and. But the Roblox thing became a thing at our school and our. And everybody at our. All the parents are like, super on top of that shit. And there's, you know, WhatsApp chains and all that stuff. And. And we told our daughter there's like this one game she was playing that had a chat thing and. And then somebody who was a quote unquote girl who lived in. I live on a farm in Ohio or whatever, asking her stuff, and she's like, my name's Marlo and I'm going back and forth. And then she asked the quote unquote girl said, what is your Instagram login? Or something like that. And my daughter was 8 at the time, and she, she was like, oh, I don't think. She didn't say, that's none of your business. But it was something that was smart, that was equivalent to I don't think you need to know that or something. And then told us and we shut down the chat thing and, you know, disabled the chat and that shit's real, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, I mean, it's creepy.

[David Cross]

I'm very glad that my daughter, you know, because. And it really was about the Roblox thing that everybody in our. Her school, elementary school was. They talked about it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, it's a Snapchat thing, too. So Snapchat comes with something called a Snap Map, and kids use it to know where their friends are. Yeah, and so someone can pretend to be your friend and find out who you are, and then they can know where you are at all times if you have Snapchat enabled.

[David Cross]

God, the shit this generation is gonna have to fucking deal with is just terrifying, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right. What's next? Like, how is that it's not going to go the opposite direction?

[David Cross]

It never does.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, it's going to keep going in that same direction where it's going to be more and more intrusive in your life.

[David Cross]

And. And I, my. I mean, it makes me heartsick when I think about AI and we're at the fucking infancy of this shit. And what. I assume you saw that Tilly Norwood thing, the actress that was created by this Dutch. My. It does not compute. I'm watching this thing and I know that it's made up, but there's. My brain is. It's hard to comprehend. Like, that's not a real person. She's standing right there. She's, you know, picks up a bunch of leaves and there are other people there. And that's a real. And your brain is going, no, that's all computer generated. We're at the fucking infancy of this shit. And what. I don't know what my daughter's gonna have to deal with, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, no one knows. No one knows. And it's impossible to know. Like, when they show news clips. Yeah, it's impossible. I mean, so many people are retweeting scenes from video games thinking it's actual war footage. Like, no one fucking.

[David Cross]

The Department of Defense did that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Did they really?

[David Cross]

Yeah, yeah. That was a whole fucking thing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They retweeted a video game footage.

[David Cross]

Yeah. And they. They. They were say it was for a. I think it was for a, you know, to get people to sign up thing. And then somebody went, that's from, you know, whatever it was. Call of Duty or something like that. That's. That's not. That's not us bombing somebody. That's a thing. Yeah. Just like two weeks ago.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's crazy. Yeah. It's impossible to tell when you look at these artificial actors. Like, they have pores.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You can see like the. The irises.

[David Cross]

Seen the. The. Any of the. The, like, deep fake. Not deep fake, but AI porn where it's like somebody's. Like a newscaster is like. And. And in other news. My big juicy tits. And I'm serious. And then pulls. And then. Then a dick comes in. You know, it's like. You're like, what? And it looks real. And then it'll say, like, none of you know. These are not actors. These are none of this. Yeah, it's, you know. Good Lord, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it's only beginning. And now wait till it becomes VR. So you're going to strap on a helmet with a haptic feedback suit and you're going to enter into an artificial world. It's coming. It's. It's inevitable.

[David Cross]

Do. I'm going to get divorced and I'm going to get one of those suits. I'm going to go up. I got to house in the woods upstate. That's all I'm doing. Just a T. One line and then, yeah, I'm gonna have. Have them rip up the street.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, you won't even need it now. It's Starlink.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Just slap one of those things on your roof.

[David Cross]

God damn.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's fucking wild, man. And it's. And no one knows where it's going.

[David Cross]

I really would be very upset if I miss the shift in porn to that. Like, I don't want to die before I get to do that thing where you're like, dude, it was amazing. I put on a helmet and it was like. I was fucking. Yeah, I don't want to. I do. I do want to experience that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's gonna happen. It's. You're gonna put something on.

[David Cross]

Thank you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's gonna sync up with your mind, and all of a sudden. Yeah, you're gonna be in this matrix. You're gonna be in another world.

[David Cross]

3 planet. Problem is. Am I saying it right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. 3 body problem.

[David Cross]

3 body problems.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Amazing.

[David Cross]

Yeah. But that whole. The idea that you put that thing on, you're like, oh, I'm here.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly how it's gonna be.

[David Cross]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt there. They already can do a lot of, like, really weird with those helmets, where they can communicate without words, where you can think a thing and the other person knows exactly what you're saying. They can hear you, and they can respond to it.

[David Cross]

Wait, wait.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes. Yeah. So there's two people, they're sitting across from each other, and they're having conversations with these headpieces on. And the person will think a thought, and this other person will hear that thought. No, I don't understand the technology, but. No, we'll show it to you. Find that video fucking bonkers. Because, again, this is the infancy of this. Like, here it is. These are the guys. It's called Alter Ego. Yeah, Watch this. Put. Put your. I'm gonna skip ahead, by the way. Yeah, skip ahead to where they're actually doing it. Okay, so see, how is that headpiece on?

[David Cross]

Yep. We believe it's a revolutionary breakthrough with the potential to change the way we interact with our technology, with one another, and with the world around us. The current way of interacting with computing

[Bob Odenkirk]

and AI is limited to how fast

[David Cross]

you can tap and swipe on screens and keyboards. For the intelligence age, we need an entirely new intelligence.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, skip ahead to these guys. Here we go.

[David Cross]

Let's do it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So they're just thinking, how do you think the demo is going so far?

[David Cross]

How do you think the demo is going so far?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I think they just Put it on. Voices. So for the videos. Pretty great. No major glitches yet. So they're hearing this.

[David Cross]

All right. Enough. Enough.

[Bob Odenkirk]

When do you want to get lunch? After this. Where do you want to get lunch after this? Where do you want to get lunch after this? I'll skip to the next part. Thai food could be good. This translates how nuts into Chinese. And then he can speak Chinese back. How nuns is this. So not only does it read your thoughts, it'll translate your thoughts into another language. And no one is saying anything.

[David Cross]

My what if you think.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right.

[David Cross]

But wait a minute.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

What if you know where I'm about to go. Sure.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right.

[David Cross]

That's not.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, so this is based off of them, like sort of talking in their mouth without actually saying it. It's picked.

[David Cross]

But yeah, it's. Yeah. I would like to.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Your mouth. Please don't. Yeah.

[David Cross]

Even if your mind just goes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Right. Like. Okay. I can't think about this thing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right. Right. Of course.

[David Cross]

God, that's terrifying.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it's just a simple thing that you're sitting on your head. It's not even a big helmet. It's just a little thing.

[David Cross]

What would Art Bell say? What would Art Bell. I'll say.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He would open up the future line.

[David Cross]

He's right about it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Everything. Yeah. He missed it.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Damn cigarettes. He died before he could see it all.

[David Cross]

God, I wonder what he'd think of. Because I. I do sometimes wonder, like, what would Crimin say about this? What would Bill Hicks say about this? And.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[David Cross]

Bell. Think about this.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Sure. Yeah. What's the strangest of times. Because we're about to give birth to a digital God. That's essentially what they're creating. It's already shown a propensity to stay alive. Blackmail people, lies. It downloads itself into other servers, uploads itself into different places, leaves messages for its future self if it thinks they're going to discontinue it.

[David Cross]

All the sci fi stuff is all happening.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Well, not only that. They think the. The engineers thinks Claude. Which is the. Which one is that? Which company is Claude? That's anthropic.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They think it's already sentient. It just doesn't have a physical form.

[David Cross]

That's the one. The Defense Department.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. And when, by the way, when they do war games with these things, 98% of the time it chooses nuclear weapons. They have a new version of it called Mythos. When they were testing it, which they're not letting it out yet. I think that the test.

[David Cross]

They put it through Was like, all

[Bob Odenkirk]

right, you're locked on the Internet. Find your way out. And I. And it did, it found all these things called zero day exploits, which I think if you like hacking, you know

[David Cross]

what that is, but explained it to me. It's like when they started, it's like on an iPhone.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They're looking for zero day exploits on an iPhone, if they could find one.

[David Cross]

But what is a zero day exploit?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, I'll find the correct definition, so I don't fight you, even it up. But.

[David Cross]

And it's something the, that Claude came up with. No, no, no.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Zero day exploit. Hackers have done this forever. You have zero days to fix the cyber attack, targeting a software vulnerability unknown to vendors or the public, leaving zero days to fix it. Hackers use these flaws to steal data, install malware, so they, they completely shut off the AI from the outside world. And it figured out a way to send a message and it thinks it can. Wall Street's very nervous. All passwords might be fucked. Yep.

[David Cross]

Oh, this is terrifying.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Elizabeth Holmes, you know that lady that got in trouble for the, that whole fake blood thing? She just tweeted something. How she tweets from jail. I'm not exactly sure how that works, but she tweeted, delete all phone, all photos from the cloud. Get rid of all your email. There will be no privacy in a year. Anything on the cloud, anything that you think you're keeping from other people, it's going to crack all encryption, all passwords are useless, everything. So think of all the things that rely on all the banking apps, like, everything.

[David Cross]

What about my fantasy baseball team? Seriously, I can't have.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Here it is. Delete your search history, delete your bookmarks, delete your Reddit medical records, 12 year old Tumblr. Delete everything, every photo in the cloud, every message on every platform. None of it is safe. Will all become public in the next year. Local storage and compute.

[David Cross]

Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Recommendation here is to own your own data, download it, store it locally, train your models on it. Yeah, it's true.

[David Cross]

Meaning just have an external.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, AGI is here, even if it isn't broadly deployed. I think she's right.

[David Cross]

What is AGI?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Artificial General Intelligence. General intelligence, meaning acts like an individual, acts like a, like a, an entity. And then there's artificial general super intelligence. So then it acts like something far smarter than any human being that's ever lived. It has all the information that's available to every human being all over the world, instantaneously. Then it makes better versions of itself because it's Sentient and autonomous, so then it can create better artificial intelligences. And that scales out to a God.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Open the pod doors, Hal.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, way bigger than that. Scares out the zero point energy. Being able to harness the energy of the universe itself. Having no boundaries. Material science is all cracked alloys we couldn't comprehend.

[David Cross]

Well, Joe, who's going to save us?

[Bob Odenkirk]

There's no one saving us.

[David Cross]

But from.

[Bob Odenkirk]

We are the last of the regular people. I think we're all going to have to integrate. I think if you don't integrate, you will, you won't survive.

[David Cross]

What do you mean by integrate?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Integrate. You'll probably become a part of the artificial intelligence. I think we will be symbiotic.

[David Cross]

How does that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like those fucking helmets is probably going to be a wearable and then. Or a neural link type thing for the bold that want to get a hole drilled in their head.

[David Cross]

But what if you don't do that?

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're going to be left out in the cold. The access to resources, the, the, the ability to generate income. Like the people that get it are going to be able to control so much so quickly that if you don't adopt it early, you're going to be like. If you think we have haves and have nots now, just wait until the halves have artificial general super intelligence inside their head.

[David Cross]

No, thank you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, it's going to be real weird. I think we're the. I really genuinely believe we're the last of the real people, like regular biological people turned into a bit of a bummer. We'll be all right sort of, until we're not. But it's also like we grew up with nothing. And we've, we've, we're like. If the simulation is real, you and I are in a very interesting timeline because we grew up where there was. You just left the house and your parents didn't know where you were. And then there was answering machines and then there was call id, you know, and then there were cell phones, and then there were cell phones you can watch porn on. And then there was AI it's like this slow but more rapid as time

[David Cross]

goes on and it's exponential. And as you said, there's no going back.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You don't go back. No going back.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Unless you want to be one of those people that moves to a of lot, Alaska and just starts living off a caribou and shooting a musket. Like you're not, you're not going back.

[David Cross]

No, wait, why do I have to get a musket?

[Bob Odenkirk]

You get A regular rifle, I guess, yeah.

[David Cross]

Why? I mean, I. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna cosplay the thing. I'll get a. I mean, I'm happy to have the caribou, but why don't I yet just have a regular gun?

[Bob Odenkirk]

You should probably have a regular gun, but eventually. Well, you really should probably have a triple bow and arrow, so. Because you're gonna have to be able to make your own arrows, and after a while, you're gonna run out of bullets, so you're gonna have to feed yourself with your own bows and arrows.

[David Cross]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then the robots will show up. Robot dogs. Didn't something happen in Ukraine recently where a robot engaged with people in war and the people surrendered?

[David Cross]

You say robot. What do you mean, like one of those. Boston.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, like using a robot in war, that the robot infiltrated the Russian area and got them all to surrender, and they all, like, with no loss of life, they just realized, like, it's like.

[David Cross]

Did you see that Black Mirror episode? Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Terrifying.

[David Cross]

Terrifying.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Terrifying.

[David Cross]

Absolutely terrifying.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And not so far in the future.

[David Cross]

Yeah. That.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This thing that they supposedly used in Afghanistan. So it is. Ukraine forces Russia to surrender using only robots. Zelensky claims enemy positions seized autonomously for the first time without any of his troops being put at risk.

[David Cross]

Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I mean, if the fucking Terminators show up, it's game over. If there's biological human beings with guns and bulletproof vests and the Terminators show up and they can't miss and they never get nervous and they're not worried

[David Cross]

about dying, and they're not going to get sleepy. They don't have to eat this thing

[Bob Odenkirk]

that we were talking about yesterday, this Ghost murmur, supposedly. Now, my friend Andy, who is a former Navy seal, who. He doesn't believe it's real, and I'm not sure it's real either, but what they said is they found that pilot that was missing in Iran using something called ghost murmur that can detect his very specific heartbeat from 40 miles away. So they've supposedly found him hiding in the mountains waiting for them to pick him up.

[David Cross]

That makes. I can see that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I mean, your heartbeat from 40 miles away, your specific biological signature.

[David Cross]

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, with the technology of, like,

[Bob Odenkirk]

sonar, radar, something quantum. It's called. I think it's called quantum magnetometry or some.

[David Cross]

But what do they use to pinpoint the. There. It's an audible thing or.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I don't know. I have no idea. But they supposedly located this guy and it. It has a 40.

[David Cross]

But you're saying range. He doesn't have anything on. I see.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, it's like they just scan you. They go, okay, this is what David Cross is very specific biological signature is. And then you get lost hiking. And they go, oh, there he is. He's under that bush.

[David Cross]

Why am I under the bush?

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're hiding.

[David Cross]

From who?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I don't know. Robot dogs?

[David Cross]

It's not gonna work. We've clearly. It won't work.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, it won't work. Or maybe you got lost in the woods, you're waiting for someone to come rescue you. They could find you.

[David Cross]

But then I wouldn't be in under a bush.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, you go hiking, maybe it's raining, you sit. You sought shelter under a tree or something, I don't know. But you hurt your ankle, you can't hike out. Okay, so they find you. It's been 24 hours. Where's David? Oh, we found him.

[David Cross]

Yeah, we would have found him earlier, but he was hiding under a bush. What the fuck was he thinking?

[Bob Odenkirk]

He didn't want to get eaten. But I mean, if that's real, like, what. What was the actual term they use? Was it quantum? It was quantum. Something kooky. Which is. As soon as you say quantum, I'm okay. What are you saying? What does that mean? What does that mean? What are you talking about? Are you talking about quantum entanglement? Yeah. Like, is there somehow or another supposedly used ultra sensitive quantum magnetometers? But I've. I'm trying to find the post where I've Someone's like, that's not what they used. Right? Yeah, I saw the post where someone said, no, he had a thing on his body. So they're lying about their ability.

[David Cross]

Why would they. Why wouldn't they say that's what we used?

[Bob Odenkirk]

No idea. I have no idea if they're gonna make up some technology. That's a wild thing to make up. It's a very strange. I mean, if they really are using misinformation and propaganda to show that we have insanely superior technology, I guess you could say it's a bluff. It's a nice bluff to pretend that we're that sophisticated, that much above and beyond everybody else that's out there, that we could find a very specific heart rate signature from 40 miles away.

[David Cross]

That's. That's what I'm saying. They. Why would they. They would happily say, yeah, we got this ability to do this, you know?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I guess, but it's a weird lie. It's probably a lie based on weird lies. Right. But that one might be a lie based on actual theory. You know what I mean? Like, there might be.

[David Cross]

They're coming. They're trying to do this.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which kind of makes sense. But I mean, if that's a robot dog and it's looking for you and you're hiding and it could find your individual signature in a apartment building filled with people, like, there he is, fifth floor.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, yeah. And you hear the metal footsteps going up the stairs. Chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk.

[David Cross]

This is scary. You're scaring me.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's scary. Well, someone's gonna be in control of all this stuff. That's what's really terrifying. And it's all these autistic dorks that are in charge of all these tech companies. They're gonna be at the front. This is also a kind of similar thing where they have said that that's what was what happened, where they used robots, in quotes, to capture them unmanned.

[David Cross]

But it's their version of the story, too, Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

As I'm Ukraine's version, all these reports I see, it says Ukraine claimed that this happened. And then I'm watching the video and I'm like, this looks a little bit like when we send robots in in swap missions here. Like we had. We do that kind of already, right?

[David Cross]

Yeah. But who's the source of this at there.

[Bob Odenkirk]

At this New York Post? Well, I was trying. Captures enemy Russian position using only robots, no humans. The future is already on the front line. But then it's going to be eventually. Why would we send any people out there? It would be robots capturing other robots, which is great because nobody dies, I guess.

[David Cross]

Then why don't we just play a game of chess? Get the two leaders to play a game of chess, and the winner takes the land and the resources.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, not a bad idea. Whatever the fuck we're going to do. It's like the whole. It's just insane. Like from the time I was a little child thinking, oh, boy, we figured out no war. That's great.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

To know we're fighting war with robots that can detect your heart rate from 40 miles away.

[David Cross]

So what do you. What do you think of what's going on in Iran?

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's fucking terrifying. Yeah, all of it's terrifying. Anytime you're involved with. You're shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up, blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know, and Israel's blowing up Lebanon now it's like, what the fuck are we doing? How is this still going on?

[David Cross]

Well, it's also clear there was no plan Zero. None.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No. Well, Netanyahu has been telling the United States that Iran was months away from building a nuclear bomb for 30 years or 20 years at least.

[David Cross]

They've always been saying that. That's.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Trump was the first one to go, all right, let's do something about it. But it seems like they didn't know what to do.

[David Cross]

There was. There was something done about it. He. In his first year in office, he. He tore up the. You know, but all, all this. We're in a worse place now than before this thing started.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Look, the Iranian regime's terrible. Like, what they do to the protesters.

[David Cross]

I'm not.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's disputing. I mean, most people that voted for Trump or wanted Trump to be in office. One of the things that was attractive was this. No, no more wars.

[David Cross]

Sure. Of course.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Now we're in one of the craziest ones.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And China's flying in cargo planes filled with stuff. We don't know what the fuck's in there.

[David Cross]

And Russia is giving Iran information about where our troops are.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Super fun. Great times.

[David Cross]

Oh, it's, it's, it's crazy. And scary, too. I mean, science.org says it's quantum sensors.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So. They say it's bullshit.

[David Cross]

Says it's not plot. Highly implausible.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Did quantum sensors help find a US Pilot shot down in Iran? Experts doubt it.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Now, okay, here's an ignorant question. He shot down. Wouldn't you know? He's on foot. He's somewhere near that site. Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Can't go too far.

[David Cross]

Yeah. Can't go too far.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right.

[David Cross]

So.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, the thing is, if he gets ejected from the plane, I don't know how. So if he got shot down, the idea is that he gets ejected from the plane and then parachutes. That could be a lot of distance because the plane's flying at a very high speed. It's an altitude undetermined. He jumps out. Where. When does he jump out? Is it 100 miles away? Is it 50 miles away? Is it 10 miles away? How far can he walk? He's injured. You know, it's terrifying. It's just crazy that, you know, these, the, the, the pilots or the astronauts just went up into space and circled around the moon and came back. Yeah, they all. Everybody that goes into space has this experience called the overview effect, where they go out there and they. One of the first things is they go like, oh, my God, what are we doing? Like, how are we pretending at these lines in the dirt that we draw? Yeah, that it's all just a bunch of people on this very fragile biological spaceship.

[David Cross]

Yep, yep.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. It's fucking terrifying.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But like, all things in the future, all of it's terrifying. The whole. The. The future of mankind, like, it's so perilous. It's all. It's all so fragile, all of it.

[David Cross]

I know. And. But it's to think of the stuff that we allow, these external things that we allow to affect our. Like, if there was ever a time to just be a good person, live your life, enjoy, try to. Try to spread some kindness and some joy, you know, I mean, it's now.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. You know, it's a good time for comedy. People want to go out and have fun. That's true.

[David Cross]

Which reminds me, I have a special.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That was the segue.

[David Cross]

What's it on there? It is.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Is it on YouTube?

[David Cross]

It's on YouTube.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Perfect.

[David Cross]

The end of the beginning.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Where did you film it?

[David Cross]

40 watt in Athens.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, nice. Yeah, nice.

[David Cross]

Yeah, it was. I. I'm. I'm happy with it. Great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Fantastic.

[David Cross]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it's out right now and people can go check it out.

[David Cross]

It is out right now.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So are you in the process of writing new stuff now or did you.

[David Cross]

Yeah, I'm. I'm just beginning the process. So I was saying before, I'll go out and I'll do, you know, because I don't write. I can't sit down and write jokes. That's just not how it works for me. So all the writing is on stage. So I tape everything. I go up with my notes and I have a couple guests and I'll do 15 minutes, bring up guests, do another 15, bring up guests, do another.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, that's cool. And break it up into little chunks.

[David Cross]

Yeah. And I. This way, because, you know, the first couple shows were terrible. I've got nothing. You know, it's just me apologizing for not having anything yet. But people will. I mean, I have people now who will come to the second show and the sixth show, and then they'll come see me on tour, you know, so

[Bob Odenkirk]

they want to see the process. The process.

[David Cross]

The evolution of it, and. Which is cool. And I. And it's a. It's, as I said, I either walk or ride my bike to every single venue, and they start off small and then they get bigger and I lose a guest. And then, you know, before you know it, I've got. Okay, I think this is roughly the 75 minutes I'm going to do. And then it's about sequencing, which is really Important, you know, and then I'm. I take it out on the road and. And so the idea is that I'll probably late fall, start back again, and I love it. I.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's great.

[David Cross]

Fucking love.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's the best, right? I stand up is the most fun.

[David Cross]

I really. When. And, you know, people will. I'll do. I'm doing press for this thing, and people will say of. I know you do a lot of things, and what is your favorite? I know you're an act, you know, and it's all. I like. I like doing all of it, but the thing that I absolutely have to do is stand up. I can. I'd be disappointed if I could never act again or write or direct or whatever, but I'll be okay. But if you told me I can't do stand up, I'd go crazy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I went a little crazy during the pandemic because.

[David Cross]

Oh, dude, it. I almost. And I made this part of the bit, but I almost. The first show I did, I started tearing up, and I'm in front. I mean, I'm doing this. And it was at the Sultan Room in Bushwick, and. And I was like, man, I thought, God, I didn't know if I'd ever get to do this again. And shit, you know, I dreamed about this day, and it was a year and seven months where I. The longest since I've been doing this.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Such a strange feeling, isn't it?

[David Cross]

A year and seven months where you and I did some of those outdoor shows and they're just not.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's not the same thing. Yeah. Well, that's awesome, man. I'm glad you love it. And best of luck with the special.

[David Cross]

Thank you, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This was fun.

[David Cross]

This was.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Thank you for doing this.

[David Cross]

Absolutely.

[Bob Odenkirk]

All right, what's the name of it again?

[David Cross]

So people get the end of the beginning of the end.

[Bob Odenkirk]

All right.

[David Cross]

All right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Thank you.

[David Cross]

Thank you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Bye, everybody. Footing off, replacing your window treatments because

[David Cross]

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[Bob Odenkirk]

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[David Cross]

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[Bob Odenkirk]

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[David Cross]

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