Bob Odenkirk

Summary

What's Our Podcast? with Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney

Episode: Bob Odenkirk
Release Date: April 8, 2026
Podcast Network: Headgum

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Episode Overview

In this lively episode, Beck and Kyle welcome the legendary Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show, Better Call Saul) for a freewheeling conversation that moves from comedy origins and creative mentorship to action movies and the mysteries of LA infrastructure. True to its format, the episode kicks off with Beck and Kyle’s ongoing quest to figure out “what’s our podcast about?”, ultimately handing the reins to Odenkirk for a hilarious mock-segment about the city’s “rotting infrastructure.” Along the way, listeners are treated to behind-the-scenes comedy lore, personal revelations, and Odenkirk’s singular wit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter & Personal Weekend Recap

• 00:56–13:12
  • Light banter about physical sensations sitting in their podcast chairs, with Beck and Kyle riffing on “mud pies” and the “hive mind” of online communities.
    • “Is it a hive minded, two people?” – Kyle Mooney (01:30)
    • “Hey, hive mind, does the market have any fresh beans today?” – Beck Bennett (02:06)
  • Reminiscing about early days on Facebook, flirting with “pokes,” and the evolution of digital romantic connections.
  • Playful run-through of modern dating apps, password woes, and the absurdities of CAPTCHA.

2. Family & Parenting

• 09:42–13:00
  • Beck and Kyle discuss spending relaxing weekends with family, activities with their children, and the importance of embracing “new things” as their daughters grow.
  • Kyle details his favorite activity: hour-long dance sessions with his daughter, curated with YouTube playlists of classic television performances.
    • “My favorite thing is just dancing with her, really.” – Kyle Mooney (10:12)
    • Conversation about using performances to inspire kids to dance and appreciate music.

3. Introducing Bob Odenkirk: Comedy Influences & Action Star Evolution

• 17:43–39:39
  • Bob arrives; they reminisce about Kyle’s SoCal character and being roasted by children at a Tim Heidecker event.
    • “His brain is just jelly here because...it doesn’t go anywhere.” – Bob Odenkirk (18:02)
  • Odenkirk discusses promotion for his upcoming, old-school action film “Normal,” working with director Ben Wheatley, and the excitement of a physical film projection tour.
    • “This movie...feels like a movie from the 80s or 70s, even, like a Roadhouse thing.” – Bob Odenkirk (19:07)
  • Reveals that “Nobody” was inspired by a real home break-in and how the film’s themes reflect personal struggles with taking (or not taking) action.
    • “The real thing was worse than what you see in the movie.” – Bob Odenkirk (22:28)
  • Thoughts on masculinity, fantasy vs. reality in self-defense, and advice received from police and professional stunt coordinators.
    • “They all say, get the f** out, run.”* – Bob Odenkirk (27:00)
  • Candid discussion of injury, stunt training, and the physical transformation required for the new phase of his career.
    • “The amount of embarrassment I had to just live with for a year and a half, two years...” – Bob Odenkirk (32:04)
    • Odenkirk’s approach: bringing character and comedic sensibility to fight choreography, inspired by Jackie Chan.

4. Comedy Legacy: Mr. Show, Mentorship, and Alternative Comedy

• 39:42–48:01
  • Beck and Kyle describe discovering Mr. Show, the influence of Odenkirk's work on their comedic development, and their beginnings in Chicago.
    • “Mr. Show is still, to me, my brain on screen.” – Bob Odenkirk (43:13)
  • Odenkirk discusses sketch comedy as his true calling, what made Mr. Show special, and the challenges of “what’s next” after a creative peak.
  • Recollections about fostering younger comedic talent (Good Neighbor, Birthday Boys, Tim & Eric), and the value in mentoring up-and-comers.
    • “If I can shorten that [learning curve] for somebody, that’s awesome.” – Bob Odenkirk (47:06)
  • The joy and frustration of moving beyond broad silliness into new creative forms, and collaborating with his son on character pieces.
    • “I do miss it. I find little moments to do silly stuff in the action films, but not much.” – Bob Odenkirk (49:05)
  • Reflections on “anger in comedy,” influences from Peter Cook and Beyond the Fringe, and the intertwined nature of rage and humor.
    • “Python was what Eric [Idle] saw in the Fringe. I saw in Python. Here’s that anger I have in me twisted around and turned into silliness and fun.” – Bob Odenkirk (51:52)

5. SNL Lore & Writer's Room Antics

• 54:00–65:02
  • Recaps of Odenkirk’s time as an SNL writer, sharing offices with Conan O’Brien and Ben Stiller.
  • The story behind the “motivational speaker” sketch, his involvement, and Chris Farley’s iconic performances.
    • “Don’t start at the end...build to something.” – Bob Odenkirk (55:43)
  • Legendary tales of late-night chaos: the “goo balls” incident, collective mischief amongst SNL writers, and a rare video documenting their tomfoolery.
    • “Hundreds of holes in the wall. Downey was throwing them. He’s the head writer. He’s the adult.” – Bob Odenkirk (63:21)

6. Creative Growth, Collaboration, and Vulnerability

• 67:30–76:26
  • Odenkirk reflects on personal growth post-heart attack, becoming more collaborative, and the journey from rigidity to kindness.
    • “It’s weird when you have a vision for something...you have a gut feeling, and that’s a great thing, and it’s a gift. But in the end, you’re not being responsible if you don’t do everything you can to make the thing work.” – Bob Odenkirk (72:51)
  • Observations about working with Vince Gilligan and balancing vision with empathy.
  • On risk and failure:
    • “You have to be willing to fail miserably and look like an asshole.” – Bob Odenkirk (76:16)
    • “It’s really a prank to make my old friends laugh...the win. The fail would be, it’s horrible...So what? Who gives a shit? So just go at it.” – Bob Odenkirk (76:41–77:23)

7. The Podcast-Within-the-Podcast: LA’s Rotting Infrastructure

• 77:38–91:49
  • Bob pitches a wonderfully mundane, surreal segment: “Los Angeles’ Rotting Infrastructure,” riffing on everything from sewers to sidewalks.
    • “I focus on sewers. The sewer system. But yeah. And that’s a personal choice.” – Bob Odenkirk (81:01)
  • Absurdly detailed exploration of sewer materials, PVC vs. clay, and speculative “wastewash” technology, with Elon Musk invoked as a potential savior.
  • Tangents on rubber sidewalks, jogger safety, parallel parking benefits, and a utopic “sewer city” with mini-dolphins swimming up from your toilet.
    • “What if you went up to your bathroom and that was just everywhere. Just in your bedroom is ocean water...Dolphins swimming around your bed.” – Bob Odenkirk (89:04–89:23)
  • The bit concludes with a group reflection: “Pipe Dreams,” and mutual appreciation for let-it-be-weird podcasting.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This feels a little weird for me. It’s a little squishy, a little bubbly, a little slippery kind of.” – Beck Bennett (01:00)
• “Comedy is rhythm.” – Kyle Mooney (12:27)
• “I just want...with every fight I do...I want a character, a story to it, a vibe. Like, what is this fight about? Rediscovering his energy, his skills, you know, finding out that he’s up against something way bigger than he thought.” – Bob Odenkirk (34:28)
• “Mr. Show...That’s me. And so, the weird part is to finish that kind of thing. Everything was building up to that...and then it’s over and like, oh, now what?” – Bob Odenkirk (43:13–44:20)
• “If I can shorten that [learning curve] for somebody, that’s awesome.” – Bob Odenkirk (47:06)
• “It’s really a prank to make my old friends laugh...the win. The fail would be, it’s horrible...So what? Who gives a shit? So just go at it.” – Bob Odenkirk on failure (76:41–77:23)
• “You went from comedy to drama to action. And now to be dedicating yourself to something that’s...sewers.” – Kyle Mooney (81:24)
• “This is all I wish, a pipe dream...why not that? Well, you’re not sewer focus.” – Bob Odenkirk (90:32)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:56–05:36: Banter – mud pies, hive mind, Facebook & online advice.
• 09:42–13:12: Weekend recaps, parenting, dancing with kids.
• 17:43–39:39: Bob Odenkirk joins; discussion of action movies, creative inspirations, real-life events behind Nobody.
• 39:42–48:01: Comedy mentorship, alt-comedy legacy, generational influence.
• 54:00–65:02: SNL writing room stories, “goo balls” incident.
• 67:30–76:26: Growth, creative collaboration, the wisdom of failure.
• 77:38–91:49: “LA’s Rotting Infrastructure” podcast-within-a-podcast.
• 91:59–93:10: Closing reflections on Odenkirk’s approach, improv direction of podcast, gratitude.

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Tone & Style

• The tone is loose, absurdist, warm, and often self-effacing.
• Signature blend of Beck and Kyle’s inane riffing and Bob’s dry, contemplative humor.
• Conversation moves fluidly between personal stories, deep dives on the creative process, and complete comedic flights of fancy.

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Summary Takeaways

This episode is a masterclass in not only comedy but also creative evolution, risk, and the beauty of not knowing exactly “what your podcast is about.” Odenkirk’s willingness to reflect, encourage, and play elevates the conversation, offering both actionable wisdom and sheer lunacy. The segment on “LA’s Rotting Infrastructure” encapsulates the show’s ethos—embracing the silly, the serious, and the surreal, all at once.

Recommended for: Fans of comedy history, creative process nerds, alt-comedy enthusiasts, and anyone who loves a mix of genuine insight with off-the-wall, deadpan nonsense.

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Listen to more or watch on YouTube: What's Our Podcast? with Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney.

Transcript

[Bob Odenkirk]

This is a headgun Podcast

[Beck Bennett]

Hacks is back for its fifth and final season, and so is the Hacks podcast. Join the Hacks creators and showrunners Lucia Agnello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky

[Bob Odenkirk]

as they unpack the Emmy winning comedy

[Beck Bennett]

series on each episode. Hear stories from the set, what goes

[Kyle Mooney]

on in the writers room, and how

[Beck Bennett]

these beloved characters close out their final season. Watch Hacks streaming exclusively on HBO Max

[Bob Odenkirk]

and listen to the Hacks podcast on

[Beck Bennett]

HBO Max or wherever you get your podcasts. What's our podcast? What's it gonna be about? Tell us what's our podcast? What should we talk about with Beck and Kyle? Oh, okay. Kyle's wiping the glasses off and sitting down. Oh, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This feels.

[Kyle Mooney]

This feels like a little sl. Eyes of heaven.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, my. This feels a little. Little weird for me. It's a little squishy, a little bubbly, a little slippery kind of.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's a little abnormal. Could you get up for one second?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Anything? Yeah, it's a little look normal down there.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, my gosh. No, it's the return of.

[Beck Bennett]

It's return of the mud pie.

[Kyle Mooney]

Of the mud pie.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, that's crazy. That was. That was. Dude, that was some of the. Some of the stuff that comes out of our minds.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah. Well, thank you.

[Beck Bennett]

The grow out of the hive mind, you know, the group mind sort of thing.

[Kyle Mooney]

Is it a hive minded, two people?

[Beck Bennett]

I don't think so.

[Kyle Mooney]

Interesting. It's something. It's one of those things that I kind of lose sleep over. Like, when is it a hive mind? It's a hive mind.

[Beck Bennett]

Do you remember back in the day, you going on Facebook and being like, I need help. Hive mind. What kind of shoes should I get for hiking?

[Kyle Mooney]

I still do that every day. I'm always. I'm always going online being like, hey, hive mind, I need help. Hey, I've Mind. How do I. What's.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What's the.

[Kyle Mooney]

What's the fast. What's the fastest way to the. To the. To the market? So I could pick up my. So I could pick up my.

[Beck Bennett]

My beans. Pick up fresh beans. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Hey, hi.

[Kyle Mooney]

I have mine. Does the market have any fresh beans today?

[Beck Bennett]

That is a. That is a thing. People going on the Internet to ask people questions and get help. You know, it's.

[Kyle Mooney]

Hey, I got a question for you.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, lay it on me, sister.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You remember that?

[Kyle Mooney]

You remember when Facebook started? Yeah, yeah, probably. Oh, six or something. Zero. Five.

[Beck Bennett]

No, I don't. Oh, four was it?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Maybe.

[Beck Bennett]

I think it was zero.

[Kyle Mooney]

Four.

[Beck Bennett]

I remember being.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. I remember. I remember getting on it. I think, like, fall of my sophomore year, which would have been 04.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You do ever. Did you ever flirt on Facebook?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Poke somebody. Remember that? You could poke somebody. Like, poke so.

[Kyle Mooney]

And you think that there was a situation where, like, you had a crush and you're like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to poke her.

[Beck Bennett]

I don't know if I. If the poke ever. If I ever did that or if it ever worked, but I do think, definitely, like, connecting on Facebook after a party or something. Yeah. Or following up with somebody was very helpful.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yes.

[Beck Bennett]

Because you didn't have to ask for a number. You didn't have to be like, you know, and then be like, are you going to this thing? You could also see who was going to parties and you could be like. Then you could message them. Be like, hey, so you're going to this. Let's, like, meet up before. Or whatever.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah. I feel like. I'm not proud to say this, but I think that most of my romantic partnerships have been heavily aided by the use of the Internet or electronics or social media in some way or another. And that's even in middle school and high school. It was like instant messenger.

[Beck Bennett]

And then I never did Instant messenger or MySpace or anything. Yeah. Like, with my friends. Sometimes, like a group of people, like, messaging.

[Kyle Mooney]

I can't believe you weren't on.

[Beck Bennett]

I.

[Kyle Mooney]

You didn't do.

[Beck Bennett]

I am not. Not by myself. No. I didn't have my own name. I just wasn't. I did it with my family.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's cool.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Me and my family went on. We, like, look for girls for me.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's all adding up to me. I got it right.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

No problem.

[Beck Bennett]

But there's nothing to be ashamed about with finding the. Those romantic connections.

[Kyle Mooney]

No. Nowadays you got. Of course, you got fumble, dumble, bumble, rimble, door.

[Beck Bennett]

You got hinge, binge, crash, bash, grinder, render, finder, and reminder.

[Kyle Mooney]

By the way, I need. Yeah, I need a reminder. Well, my password. 19 passwords. Yeah. Here's a hint. Yeah. Your first type of car. I have no idea.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. This is 40.

[Kyle Mooney]

Which do I capitalize this one and add it. Which symbols do you allow? And then don't forget they got the captcha.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The captcha, Right.

[Beck Bennett]

What is the captcha?

[Kyle Mooney]

The captcha.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, the captcha.

[Kyle Mooney]

This is where they try to like.

[Beck Bennett]

This is the thing.

[Kyle Mooney]

I'm the one they got the. Sometimes is the captcha also. Well, Sometimes it'll be like a series of letters and numbers, but you can't really read all of the letters. And it's like, is that a lowercase?

[Beck Bennett]

The captcha is to prove you're not a robot. Yes. And sometimes it's like I just see the. I don't see the captcha as much as I am. Am I. Am I a robot? And you click like, no. And then you do the picture thing. You do the grid.

[Kyle Mooney]

Now they do the picture thing more. Which is like a grid of probably nine squares, right?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. It's like, which one has wheels?

[Kyle Mooney]

Which has a headlight.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah. Or stop. Stop lamp.

[Kyle Mooney]

And you know what? We here at what's our podcast, by the way? The podcast. We're Beck and Kyle bringing a guest to decide what our podcast should be.

[Beck Bennett]

That's right.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's what our podcast is of having to go through this just to, like, just to buy a movie ticket or something. We are human. We're not robots. And if you keep on making us do this, we're going. We're not going to use our computers anymore.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

We're not getting off them. And we're going to start doing stuff with wood.

[Beck Bennett]

We're doing stuff with wood. And that means pencils and paper, too. We'll start old school writing and doing that. So we're going to be off. Off all that. So.

[Kyle Mooney]

Well, dude, we will be doing the podcast.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Still do the podcast. By the way, we got the Patreon going.

[Beck Bennett]

We got the Patreon going, so that's good. I don't know how it's going yet because it hasn't started. I mean, it's going now, but at the time of recording, we're a week away from launching the Patreon.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Which is really, really, really, really, really, really, really cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You'll be out of town for that big launch, of course.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Well, of course I'll be gone again.

[Kyle Mooney]

I'll be.

[Beck Bennett]

Papa was a Rolling stone fielding all

[Kyle Mooney]

the questions for Michelle. Kyle, could I get your eyes on this?

[Beck Bennett]

Kyle, just bumping this for you again.

[Kyle Mooney]

Coming at my do with one of these pads. Kyle, I got another question for you.

[Beck Bennett]

You got another Patreon?

[Kyle Mooney]

Are you okay if the Patreon members have come in wearing scarves? Sure.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I don't know.

[Kyle Mooney]

Why would I?

[Beck Bennett]

Sure, whatever.

[Kyle Mooney]

By the way, by the way, this is dinner time, Rochelle.

[Beck Bennett]

By the way, it's dinner time. Michelle, would you like to come in for some freshly baked beans?

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, just finished prepping my beans, Rochelle. But yes, of course, We're Scarves. What is the problem? Here's a new Patreon.

[Beck Bennett]

There's a new Patreon. It's not a big deal. We don't need Scar.

[Kyle Mooney]

Beck will be shooting one of his new movies.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, I was shooting a new movie down in Miami, Florida.

[Kyle Mooney]

Then he'll be getting. That'll be getting a voice memo for me. Hey, so guess what I'm getting. I'm all up to my ears and Rochelle coming over. Ask me about the Patreon questions. I can't even. Can't even make a bean.

[Beck Bennett]

I mean, that's life. That's life. That's your life.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's fair.

[Beck Bennett]

Well, well, well, well. Rochelle loves it.

[Kyle Mooney]

What questions do you have for me? I want to be open right now, in this moment, I want to be open with you. We've got an incredible guest. We've got a comedy, dramatic, theatrical,

[Bob Odenkirk]

televisual,

[Kyle Mooney]

cinematic icon coming in.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

But before we. Before we get into that, what do you want to know about me? This is your chance. I've been asking you to connect with me on this level.

[Beck Bennett]

What did you do this weekend?

[Kyle Mooney]

Thank you for asking.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

And I want to know, what did you get into Saturday?

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, man, that. This is the tough part where you actually have to, like, rack your brain as to what you did.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah,

[Bob Odenkirk]

I. Sunday.

[Kyle Mooney]

I know. I saw some. I didn't see Friends in the evening.

[Beck Bennett]

Ooh.

[Kyle Mooney]

I know. We went to lunch and dinner on Sunday.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Okay.

[Kyle Mooney]

And went to the playground.

[Beck Bennett]

Okay. Hot weekend.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What.

[Kyle Mooney]

What could have Saturday been?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, my God.

[Beck Bennett]

It was after Friday.

[Kyle Mooney]

What did you do? You know, what you did on Saturday that could. Maybe.

[Beck Bennett]

Saturday, I came in from Park City, got home around 3pm which is around the time Jesse and Ruby got home. And we. I don't know. Blank spot, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That's.

[Beck Bennett]

I think we just hung out and then I think probably ordered some pizza or something.

[Kyle Mooney]

The same. I don't think anything of. I think I hung out with my family.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. That's what I did all weekend, which

[Kyle Mooney]

I get excited for. You know, like, I like. You know, we do the podcast. We got other entertainment industry things to do.

[Beck Bennett]

True.

[Kyle Mooney]

And I got life stuff. I got, you know, errands to run. But the weekend is my chance to just hang out with my family, hang out with my child. I go, I like it.

[Beck Bennett]

I love it. Are you. Are you finding new things to do as the family, as your daughter gets older? Are you finding. Are you finding things that you're like, oh, I want to do this with her. I Feel like she's old enough. Like, how do I implement that or something? Or like. Yeah, you kind of go with the flow with take her lead.

[Kyle Mooney]

Sometimes we like, will like kind of. Yeah. Pitch a new activity, but like, you know. Yeah, she's really into hide and seek right now.

[Beck Bennett]

Loves hide and seek.

[Kyle Mooney]

But I like, I truly like. My favorite thing is just dancing with her really. So like anytime I could get that going, like, I'll be like, should we dance right now? Yeah, that's what I try to do.

[Beck Bennett]

And how long does the dancing go on for? That's very sweet.

[Kyle Mooney]

If it's, if I'm waking up with her, it might be. It could be like we get a

[Beck Bennett]

solid hour and an hour of dancing. That's a lot. That's a good exercise.

[Kyle Mooney]

I've curated a playlist of YouTube videos of music videos that we both like to dance too.

[Beck Bennett]

Wow, that's. That's great. Was it. Yeah. I know you like Beach Boys. You know, a lot of like Mickey Disney.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's a lot of. On a, on a. Best case scenario, it's this television show. Clips from the show Kids Incorporated. Do you know what that show is?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah. I haven't seen it since I was a kid.

[Kyle Mooney]

It was aired on the Disney channel in the 80s and 90s. But they do covers of popular pop. Like pop songs.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

So like you can listen to like a Fleetwood Mac song or a Michael Jackson song.

[Beck Bennett]

I didn't know that.

[Kyle Mooney]

Or like a, you know, starship or whatever and, and dance. So it's like I get to introduce her to these songs I love, but they're being performed by children and I think she likes that.

[Beck Bennett]

That's great. Is it a playlist on YouTube?

[Kyle Mooney]

No, I've, I've made it.

[Beck Bennett]

But where, Where. So what is it?

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh yeah, sorry.

[Beck Bennett]

Visuals.

[Kyle Mooney]

It is. It is a playlist made of YouTube videos.

[Beck Bennett]

So you can find the Kids Incorporated, like songs.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yes.

[Beck Bennett]

That's. I mean, that's so fun. That's something. We've done that a little bit. Shown Ruby performances of songs that he likes or like just, you know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Showing like live performances of great artists. And he will watch and dance and he'll like. He's danced better than he's ever danced by watching live performances, people singing and performing music. Not like a music video, like a concert. Yes. And that's something I want to do more because we play music and dance to it. But I do want to like just be like, look at, look at these performers, look at these singers and watch them like Dance. And like, we can all dance together. That's great that you have such a built in time.

[Kyle Mooney]

Dancing is such a. It's such a great thing to do.

[Beck Bennett]

But speaking of a great thing to

[Bob Odenkirk]

do

[Kyle Mooney]

to dance to the beat of our guest.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes, exactly. And what a beat he has. He's been drumming and making rhythms since a long time.

[Kyle Mooney]

Comedy is rhythm.

[Beck Bennett]

It is a rhythm. There's a. There's a. There's a rhythm to it.

[Kyle Mooney]

You know, timing from Mr. Show with Bob and David.

[Beck Bennett]

You know, I'm from the Distiller Show, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul. Better Call Saul. Nobody. Nobody. Too normal. That is coming out soon. He is one of the most brilliant, prolific creators of sketch comedy and comedy and entertainment of so many different kinds. He's produced so many things, directed. He's found young artists and brought them.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's right.

[Beck Bennett]

Into people's lives.

[Kyle Mooney]

Definitely want to talk to him about that.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes. It's Bob Odenkirk. We're so lucky to have him here. And let's go talk to him.

[Kyle Mooney]

She. Let's welcome him to the Batcave.

[Beck Bennett]

Let's welcome him to the Batcave.

[Kyle Mooney]

This podcast is brought to you by Rocket Money.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, get into the rocket and blast off. I'm going into space.

[Kyle Mooney]

One time I looked at my bank account and saw that I was paying for Hulu twice under two different accounts. This is a true story. No way.

[Beck Bennett]

This is a true crime podcast.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes.

[Kyle Mooney]

How would that sound? Wait, we take the listener there.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

It was a. It was a normal Tuesday. Of course, memory always plays a part in the way we perceive the world around us. And I remembered, or so I thought, that I only had one Hulu account when I went to the bank to look at my most recent.

[Beck Bennett]

And then it's like. And then it's a true crime podcast because you were talking about that. And then I. And then I was the murderer who came and killed you during the podcast. So, yeah,

[Kyle Mooney]

you guys, if I. Yeah, anyway, what I. Well, what I was getting at was that if I had just used Rocket Money, I would have. Have that money. My accountant could use it to buy other stuff like donuts and chicken nuggets.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's hilariously random. That was really random. I know. I see what you guys did there.

[Beck Bennett]

Okay. Rocket Money. Rocket Money could change your life like it changed mine. Okay. It changed my life.

[Kyle Mooney]

Money can track subscriptions and has the ability to cancel unwanted ones within the app. With a few taps, saving users over $880 million in canceled subscriptions. That was one guy.

[Beck Bennett]

That was one guy that.

[Kyle Mooney]

You think, you think it's bad to, to. To subscribe to Hulu twice. Yeah. Talk to Gary Geeker Meyer.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, he is. He's doing really well because of Rocket Money. Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

He subscribed to things a lot.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

He was like. He didn't. Because he was lonely. Yeah. He didn't any. We live as, you know, I think you know where I'm going to go and I. Yep. We live in a digital society.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh.

[Beck Bennett]

And you know, with all these subscriptions, they're kind of like these tentacles that reach out and grab you. And sometimes you don't even know that one of these tentacles has gotten onto you. And before you know it, you're living life fully strapped like with all these tentacles to your body.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And.

[Beck Bennett]

And Rocket Money helps kind of take these tentacles off of you.

[Kyle Mooney]

Well, yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

So you can live free again because like they're addictive. Yeah, they're addictive. And you don't remember what you signed up for. Sometimes you click something you don't even know or you get the free trial

[Kyle Mooney]

and then you forget to cancel it.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. And you're out 8,880 million dollars.

[Kyle Mooney]

Like Gary Giegemyer.

[Beck Bennett]

Like Gary Giekermeyer. So don't be like Gary Giegemeier or be like Gary Giegemire and get Rocket Money. A lot of money back.

[Kyle Mooney]

Users who create a financial goal with Rocket money save over $70 on average within the first 30, 30 days.

[Beck Bennett]

That's like, that's, that's hashtag financial goals.

[Kyle Mooney]

You can set budgets and goals. You can get personalized insights and. And regular reports. You can receive real time alerts, large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds and low balances.

[Beck Bennett]

This is so interesting, Kyle.

[Kyle Mooney]

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that was fine and council on one subscriptions monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your own savings.

[Beck Bennett]

Dude, that I didn't. You are so knowledgeable on this and trained and really smart.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's not that much.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's not.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's not that difficult.

[Beck Bennett]

Like a professor.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah. Thank you. Let Rock Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Try RocketMoney.com recal it's RocketMoney.com.com Beck and

[Beck Bennett]

Kyle say it one more time. RocketMoney.com BeckandCyle now repeat it.

[Kyle Mooney]

RocketMoney.com BeckandKyle RocketMoney.com BeckandCole RocketMoney.com BeckandCoyle RocketMoney.com BeckandKile RocketMoney.com BeckandKiles that was pretty cool. Too bad we're not going to use any of that.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, there's no way that makes it in the ad.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, well, wait, let's actually use it. What if this one's a little different than the other ads before?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You're mad at me.

[Beck Bennett]

No.

[Kyle Mooney]

No.

[Beck Bennett]

I didn't know what to say. You thought I was mad at you, but I was not. I was.

[Kyle Mooney]

You're mad at me.

[Beck Bennett]

I wanted to say make world, but then I thought that was too cheesy.

[Kyle Mooney]

Dude, it's incredible to have Bob Odenkirch.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yo.

[Beck Bennett]

Are you kidding me, dude?

[Bob Odenkirk]

But I love your character so much. You did it at Tim Heidegger's.

[Kyle Mooney]

I did the SoCal character. Character.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, yeah. Cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That just a disaster. Just a mess.

[Kyle Mooney]

That means so much.

[Bob Odenkirk]

His brain is just jelly here because

[Kyle Mooney]

like knowing somebody like you is there.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh God.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Could listen to it forever.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Because it's just watery garbage. There's nothing. It doesn't go anywhere.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes.

[Kyle Mooney]

He's very stupid.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah. I presented to Tim like some. I did like a birth. A rap for him that's like just a incredibly poorly written rap, like poorly performed. And there was like literal feedback and there were. I was getting roasted by like a group of children who were standing right in front of me. So it was like one of those

[Bob Odenkirk]

things where it's like the kids know this guy's horrible.

[Beck Bennett]

Kids were roasting you?

[Kyle Mooney]

Yes, absolutely.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Wow. It was great. Thank you.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's nice to hear. I appreciate it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That.

[Kyle Mooney]

How have you been?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I'm doing pretty good. Pretty good.

[Beck Bennett]

Pretty good.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I am doing pretty good. I. This movie that I have coming out is. Is really fun. And so it's fun to talk about a fun movie that you don't. I don't know, it's. It's like an old style film.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It feels like a movie from the 80s or 70s, even like a roadhouse thing.

[Beck Bennett]

Like a. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And you kind of understand. Well, it's so strange to say, like, I don't. You don't see movies like this anymore. But what. It's just a movie. But I think that people are either aiming low, which. We're an action movie. So I'm not like we're aiming that high, but they're just a horror film where it's like, don't worry, it's a horror film. 10 year olds will see it. So we'll make our money somehow. Or they're trying to get everybody in the world to come Watch it and compete with Pixar and this is a movie in between that's just for entertainment. It's not trying to tell my life story story. And it's just really a fun film. And we got the perfect director, Ben Wheatley. And you know, he's a British director. He did Free Fire, he did High Rise, he did A Field in England. He's. He's made so many films and you guys would love this guy. He never, never went to college. He just started making movies when he was like 13. Just made lots of 5 minute films, 8 minute films, short films. Then he finally got to make some. And it's all he knows is film. It's all he cares about. There's always a smile in everything he does. And Derek Kolstad, who wrote it, I know I'm having a good time talking about that movie and a good time being excited about going around and showing it. We're gonna. We had Magnolia is putting it out and they were so great. Cause I was like, this feels like an old style movie. Can you put it on film? And then I'll go around and we'll project it on film in some cities just as a novelty, as a fun thing because it fits with what the movie is.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And so they set up this tour and I'm gonna get to show the movie on film in Chicago and Miami and Boston and New York and LA and Austin will be on film.

[Beck Bennett]

That's so cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, it's great. It's great. So I'm looking forward to all that fun and you know. You guys have kids?

[Beck Bennett]

We do, yeah. Four and two and a half. Almost three the ages.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You only have two and a half kids?

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Okay. Okay.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Come at me. Yeah, yeah. He's got.

[Beck Bennett]

He's got weird little things.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What I don't claim entirely. We'll see half parent one of them.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's just legs now. You co wrote the movie? Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I got a credit as a story by not as a co writer copy. Because Derek Kolstad, who writes many films, sent me three outlines for movies. Three action films.

[Kyle Mooney]

Separate ideas.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes, three separate ideas. He said, what do you think of these? Do you like any of them? And he tends to write action. That is just pure action from the get go. John Wick is the perfect example. And I just don't think I'm. I don't think that's the best use of me in every way.

[Beck Bennett]

I don't know that style of movie.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Did he write nobody? He did, yes. Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He did.

[Beck Bennett]

Which I saw.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I loved came from me talking to him about essentially what makes up much of the first act.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I had a break in at my house. My son confronted this guy. I didn't do anything. I was proud of myself. The cop said, that's not what I would have done. I was like, what the.

[Beck Bennett]

Wait, wait, I'm sorry. This is that it was based on a real thing that happened?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The real thing was worse than what you see in the movie.

[Beck Bennett]

Wow. I thought that was such an interesting point in the movie. I thought it was going to be like, they hurt your family and then you flip there, but then you stop him. And I was like, it? Really? Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So I didn't do anything. Cop said, that's not what I would have done. And I was like, well, that's. Aren't we supposed to stay out of it? Don't you. You want us to fight these?

[Beck Bennett]

Right? I thought that's how it escalates. Like, you pull out a gun and

[Bob Odenkirk]

then I call you, and then I don't do anything.

[Beck Bennett]

Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And. But it stuck with me for so many reasons. And I just offered that to Derek when he said, I think you could do an action lead. And I said, okay, well, this happened to me, and I have a lot of feelings about it. And if you want to make something out of that, please feel free. Because, you know, I think there's a. I think a lot of people can relate to that in a modern context of our lives of, you know, we're guys are, you know, you're not supposed to get violent or push back sort of ever. And of course that's true. But, you know, the truth is I was left with all these feelings of, you know, the fantasy of, you know, give me five minutes in the room with that guy.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right now that you told me you want me to do whatever I want.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, I. And of course you go like, well, I would get hurt. And I'm like, I don't care that I would get hurt. I would give anything to take that guy down.

[Beck Bennett]

It's such a relatable thing. I mean, we all like fantasy. Like, I think anybody who's ever lived anywhere, it's like, what if somebody breaks into this place? What would I do?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, so we also had a second break in by professionals when we were home. Wow. So I don't feel that way about that guy, because he was just there to take shit.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He took off as soon as there was any noise. He Only took things. He clearly was there. He was a pro.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

There was, like, a team working this neighborhood. Right. So respect.

[Beck Bennett]

So. So. But that time. So. But that was after you had this experience.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes, that was two years later. Three years.

[Beck Bennett]

Wow. Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So, yes, I would like my guitar back and that. But in the end, you could just go, well, I can get another. Whatever.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

There's nothing you can't replace. That doesn't matter.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The first one was the confrontation one. And that's the one that leaves you with, like, you know, come in and up my kids.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, And. Yeah, so Derek used that. Wrote that. So in when it came to this other film, he showed me three outlines. And the one outline was what became the movie Normal, which had this suspense element, this comic element, this story that had a little more guts to it, that I felt like now I can. I have a value there as a performer. And then, of course, I do get to fight, which is really fun.

[Beck Bennett]

So you get to show that whole range of everything you've kind of done, the character.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So a lot of action. You know, it's like, get to the action. I mean, they. It's a genre that has its stock audience, and they want to see that action happen right away and then keep going. And of course, you have to stop down for something. A phone call, something.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The action is in Paris now. Get on a plane. I have to go to Paris and. But I just would like a little bit of story, you know, let's say a half hour before we just start beating the. Out of each other.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Forgive me. I am still stuck on this cop who's just like, that's not what I would have done.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I know.

[Kyle Mooney]

That is so mean.

[Beck Bennett]

It's so mean. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Even I was so sure the whole time. I mean, everything about it, from the moment it's happened, I'm like, remember, don't get engaged. Don't. Don't exacerbate it. Don't make it worse. Don't try. Just get out of the way. Get everyone out of the way. Call the police. Get out of. Stay out of the way.

[Beck Bennett]

I feel like we hear those statistics, like, if you try to fight them, that's when people get killed.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, look, and I mean, I work with all these stunt guys, and whenever you work with these guys who sort of fight or do some kind of fighting issues, it's not fighting. They're all trained up and tend to be in jiu jitsu and Muay Thai versions of everything. Like, they steal from every discipline.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And you inevitably, at some point talk to them about their own lives and, you know, what about you in a fight or whatever? And they all say, get the out run.

[Kyle Mooney]

Right?

[Beck Bennett]

Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And they're all like built like, you know, like MMA fighters or, or they, they're impressive people physically.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And they like. No, no, I don't get in fights. I.

[Beck Bennett]

They don't even get.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, no, no, no. Because you get hurt.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You break your fist, you break your bones in your hand and yeah, you get. You're going to get hurt at one point and it's not worth it because their body is their life, their career.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So they really don't get hurt. But, you know, I, it's, you know, the fun stunt fighting that we do is. It's great. I mean, I really wish everybody could have it. It's a fantasy. It's fantasy.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. You know, Kyle and I just did one day on a movie in Hawaii and we did a stunt evaluation. It was like a two hour thing. And then we did another session when we got there and it was like a short fight scene, but it was a lot. It was not like it did not feel easy. And we both kind of got a little injured on the day when we were shooting. He's got a wrist thing. I like.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Did you hit your hand on something?

[Kyle Mooney]

I. I'm very sure his abs. I think his. I think my hand ran into his stomach and I, and I. And I was wearing a splint as of like four days ago.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Wow.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. And. And I like. He like hits me in the stomach. I hinge over to vomit and I. A little pop in my hamstring because I kept my legs straight and I'm like thinking about you doing all these, like, all these scenes. I mean, like, because there's so much work that goes into not getting hurt

[Bob Odenkirk]

on the action films. I've only cut my hands because a lot of times when you go in the actual set, whether it's like the bus and nobody, or the duck boat and nobody too. Or the set is. He's got like bars or things that aren't. Where the prep gym. You know, you set up cardboard boxes for your location and the pads and everything. Then you go to the real place and it'll be a metal plastic seat and it has like a metal rod that wasn't there.

[Kyle Mooney]

Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're gonna hit that stuff probably, and that's no big deal. You just bang up your hands and.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Maybe your knees. I always get hurt on shows that have no action in them. At all. Because there's a scene where you run and you don't. I've hurt myself running twice. Once on Lucky Hank and once on Better Call Saul. Because I didn't warm up at all.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. At all.

[Beck Bennett]

In our bodies.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Whereas when you're doing these stunt things, you're training twice a day.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're learning the choreography, and then on set, you're just staying warm all day.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You don't get hurt. And they. They really work to make sure you're.

[Beck Bennett]

You're okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They're the stunt people. The person who trains me is Daniel Bernhardt. He's from 87 north, which is. He also works with 8711. Those are two very famous stunt groups. And he's, like, one of the premier stunt actors in the world. And those guys. Him and all the people from those two troops, they're always doing their complicated stunt fighting, but they're also watching you. So if you make the slightest wrong move, they back up. They can see it. It's unreal. Because if you lose your choreography and you start to throw a punch that isn't there, that's supposed to be two steps later. They're just.

[Beck Bennett]

They step back.

[Kyle Mooney]

Forgive me. This is maybe a basic cliched question you've been getting a lot throughout this sort of action assault. I don't know what you want to call this moment you're having, but I

[Bob Odenkirk]

call it an action.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, we all call it. Everybody calls it an action.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Called it that.

[Kyle Mooney]

People are using that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're really late to the game. There's a magazine.

[Kyle Mooney]

Action Assaults Magazine.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

There's one magazine.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Cigar Aficionado. Closed its doors.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And has been hard to pay. Action assigns. They gave up when they saw that magazine.

[Kyle Mooney]

When they saw the first Nobody Cigar.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, when they saw the magazine. Oh, I see. Cigar officiant. We're closing our doors, and we're going over. Over here.

[Kyle Mooney]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I want to. This is inside magazine stuff. But everyone.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, Magazines.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This is for. Only for magazine publishers, right?

[Beck Bennett]

Yes, that's exactly right.

[Kyle Mooney]

And I'll be totally honest. Like I said, the action assaults thing, I didn't know there was a magazine

[Bob Odenkirk]

there, and I didn't. You would get sued. And that's part of doing a podcast.

[Kyle Mooney]

Let's not lose the action assault stuff if they're going to come after me, because I really. I really do got to keep it.

[Beck Bennett]

I would love to keep it.

[Kyle Mooney]

I got a lot of people I have to support.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Two and a half kids. He's got to support.

[Kyle Mooney]

I mean, now it feels like you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're.

[Kyle Mooney]

You're conveying expertise of, like, stunt work and action stuff.

[Beck Bennett]

You are an action star.

[Kyle Mooney]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So I did the first one, and it was a challenge, and I felt so out of place. But, yeah, the reason I did more was, first, it worked well. People seemed to like it. I had a great time, which I didn't expect. I would. I. It. Training was really embarrassing.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I mean, the amount of embarrassment I had to just live with for a year and a half, two years, before I finally was able to do some kind of, you know, choreography and feel like, okay, yeah, that would work.

[Beck Bennett]

A year and a half to two years. And that's training and building.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Not even shooting stunt gym. Sucking.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, right over there is Jason Statham with some other guys prepping a scene, or, you know, Keanu Reeves or. Or none of those guys. Just the stunt team standing there, flipping, landing on their backs, laughing, going, no, no, do it this way.

[Beck Bennett]

Right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

And here I am in the corner.

[Beck Bennett]

Like, that's kind of how it was like for us.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I just. I'm, like, looking over here going, what is wrong with that guy? What is he doing? Do this.

[Kyle Mooney]

Right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I'm like, no, I don't think I can do this. I. They're letting me have free training. I'm going to take it. I'll probably never make this movie. Don't look at me. You know, and. But they were always very nice to me.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah. I'm wondering if Jason Statham's ever, like, you know, a big fan of Get a Life.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Right, right, right, right.

[Kyle Mooney]

Is that a decent Statham?

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's pretty good.

[Beck Bennett]

It's a little bit more whispery. A little bit more. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So the embarrassment was the hard part. But then also, in the course of that, I was like, I have a. It's just who I am. I want these guys to know that I respect what they do.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I don't just think, oh, watch this. I can do a stupid action movie, and I can do better than anybody, you know?

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's so easy. It's so. It's just a genre, you know, I. I really wanted. And since the first one worked, I was like, okay, well, let's show everybody that I want to learn and be better at this. And still, you know, I'm taking up the rear because people like Derek Kolstad and Ben Wheatley, the directors, and Greg Rementer, who choreographs the fights, and Daniel and the team, you know, they're Just this is their world, you know, just like sketch comedy was our world, and.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, but do you feel I'm. I'm. I'm better at it now? Yeah. Yeah. I'm way more confident at, like, saying, okay, I see what you have set up for me.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

In the movie Normal, so they choreograph fights in these certain locations, and I'll give them an idea. Like, I'll say, okay, in this fight, my guy hasn't fought for years, and mostly he's good with guns. So whenever he can. If he can grab a gun, he's gonna grab a gun and he's gonna get hurt. He's gonna get hit. You know, he's. He's going to be slow, and. And so they'll try to work that in, but I'll work it in more once I get to the fight, but sometimes I'll really, like, change it. I want. I just want. With every fight I do. And I think that I might be unique in this. I want a character, a story to it, a vibe. Like, what is this fight about? Rediscovering his energy, his. His skills, you know, finding out that he's up against something way bigger than he thought. You know, there has to be, like, a journey within the fight and a kind of tone. Like, we did this duck boat fight in Nobody, too. That I. The whole reason. One of the reasons I'm doing this is I love Jackie Chan's films, and Police Story is, like, one of my favorite movies.

[Beck Bennett]

I've never seen it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, it's great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it's a film that I shared with my kids.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

There's no blood in it.

[Beck Bennett]

Cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He does action. There's no blood.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And people shoot and they fall over, but there's no blood.

[Beck Bennett]

Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's really like kids in a forest going, pew, pew.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. So if you always. I mean, like, a lot of people, a lot of us are fans of action, but you were an action fan.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No.

[Beck Bennett]

Back in the day.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, just Jackie. Just Jackie. And then the normal ones that everyone sees.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But I don't know. You know, when you talk to Derek or Ben, these guys have, you know, it's like me talking about Bob and Ray or Derek and Clive or, you know, the credibility gap or, you know, comedy. You know, stuff where you lose most people in the conversation. So anyways, I wanted to do a fight, like, Jackie Chan fight. So I said, please, can we have one fight that is kind of sillier and has more comedy in it? And I just Wanted to bring that out and try it. You know, I'd love to do a whole movie like that because that movie, we had some. Some tensions in our family. You know, as the kids get older, there are different ages and there's some challenging years ahead sometimes. Yeah, not for everybody, not for every kid or family. But, you know, when they get a little older, there can be. They can pull back or there can be challenges. And. And this film, Police Story, put it on. We were on a vacation in Hawaii. There was an undercurrent of tension. We're in Hawaii. It's beautiful. That's always where you like.

[Beck Bennett]

It's. The tension is in the most.

[Bob Odenkirk]

We can't have a good time here. We can't have a good time. We're fucked. We can't have fun here.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And. And we put that movie in and everyone loved the whole movie. I don't even know why I put. Popped it in. Why would I have thought, right? My wife hates action films. Hates them. So why would I have done it? But I did it. Everyone loved it. And it did that thing that films can do and TV shows as well. Pulled us all together, got us all on the same page, shared something really great. So I always wanted to do that for people. I still want to do that. Make a movie where there's no blood. And it's just the problem is these directors, just. More blood, more blood. Timo Chianto, who directed Nobody 2. More Blood. How's that? Timo more. How's that? Timo more. Yeah, you can't. You can't give them enough.

[Beck Bennett]

You know, if you were trying to make a movie like Police Story without the blood and everything, like, is that, is that like a challenge specifically? Like, would people be like, well, we need the blood for audiences? Like, that's like, you know what I mean?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, the problem you get into is that one of the reasons people make action films is there's this genre audience that just goes to see every one of them and they want more blood.

[Kyle Mooney]

Right?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So are you gonna piss them off or alienate them with your family friendly action?

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then on top of which the question of, are you actually gonna attract somebody who goes, I would never take my child to an action film. And you're like, yeah, but this is more like, you know, a cartoon.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yes.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Right, right. And it's more about cleverness and you might be in trouble with like, you can't make everybody happy that way. You can't do that. Anyway, it's worth a try. I actually have an Idea for a film that would live in that space, but I don't know. We'll see. Well, Flip talking at length about all that stuff.

[Beck Bennett]

I love it. Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

No, no, please.

[Beck Bennett]

The fact that you can be articulate

[Kyle Mooney]

about something is something I can't do generally.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So I don't know what I'm going to do next. I actually have taken a break. I'm writing a play with David Cross.

[Beck Bennett]

Cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

We'll see if we actually finish that. But it is a clever idea.

[Kyle Mooney]

Well, I was going to say, other

[Bob Odenkirk]

than that, I'm just reading books and stuff.

[Kyle Mooney]

The way you were introduced in my life in a very. The way I became aware of who Bob Unkirk was. I knew of your work. Not knowing that you were behind it was via Beck. I'm pretty sure. We went to college together. He had the Mr. Show DVDs, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is the guy who did Matt Foley, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and was involved in all of these foundational things for us. So I guess. And two. Two fellas from the Chicago area. So I just want to say it's great to have you to be around you guys.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, it's great to be with you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Where are you guys from?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, I'm from womat. So we grew up an hour away from each other.

[Kyle Mooney]

And I'm saying.

[Beck Bennett]

You grew up in Naperville. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, yeah, I. I found. I think I found Mr. Show through my older brother. And then I started, like, getting it on Napster or Lime and like, before the DVDs were even made. And then I got. Because growing up in Chicago, knew about Second City. My dad, who grew up in Chicago, got the Second City book. I was taking improv classes in high school down there and then read about you in the book and saw that you, you know, created that character, motivational speaker Matt Foley, and. Yeah. And then got into the Ben Stiller show and like. Yeah, you've just been such DVD too.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, I've seen all your favorite shows.

[Kyle Mooney]

I had to go to life DVDs. I remember because I loved how. I mean, like, forgive me for Ask again. This is where I don't like this. The role of being a. An interviewer or a podcaster. But, like, you have had your fingerprint on so many things and, like, so many distinct eras of comedy and, like, I feel like arguably the birth of alternative comedy. Do you take. What is your take on.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Are you.

[Kyle Mooney]

Do you have pride in that? Is that. Oh, yeah, that was Fun when we did it. Like, how do you. What's your general feeling about the whole thing?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, I mean, my general feeling is that I was born to make that stuff and do the alt scene that was happening here in 91 that then I feel spread from here. Not that it wouldn't have started elsewhere anyways, because this comedy boom that happened a few years earlier had petered out and people searching for something new to do there in that space. But the truth is, there was such an energetic movement here in la. It was really fun to be a part of that. But then additionally, I just was always built to do sketch comedy and stuff like that, and that's what I love most of all. And Mr. Show is still, to me, my brain on screen. I don't think I'll ever put anything on screen that is more who I am or how I see the world than that show. Not maybe every single sketch, but kind of just in general, its point of view on life. It's. That's me. And so the weird part is to finish that kind of thing. Everything was building up to that, you know, Saturday Night Live, Ben Stiller show, even Get a Life. It was all hovering around something more pure that spoke what I thought sketch comedy could do. And my pov, my personal POV on things on the world. And then I got to do it, and I got to do it for four years, essentially, and then it's over and like, oh, now what? I don't even know what I mean. I guess I write. Try to write movies and. Right. And, you know, then it was just like a lot of uncertainty and projects that. It's just the next thing that I'm curious about or think might I might be able to pull off. And a lot of those didn't work. A lot of them were good tries. But the weird thing is to. It felt like it took forever for me to get to do Mr. Show. I feel like if you'd stopped me in the hall at snl, I would have told you I want to do the show. Or one sketch moves into the other sketch and it's kind of like Python. It's kind of like the credibility.

[Kyle Mooney]

You had it in your head.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And. Well, Lorne sold SNL was 60 Minutes meets Monty Python. Yeah, he wanted to do Monty Python too.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. But it just. He couldn't.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But he. Well, also, when you try to marry it to 60 Minutes, which is to say topical weekly, it's not Python now.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And. And then, of course, you got commercials and so It's. He knew. I'm sure that it wouldn't be that.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But it. It got further away from that, probably. I don't know. You'd have to ask him. But I wanted to do this thing that was closer to Python, American Python, which was more, in our way, grounded in pedestrian pop culture observations. Not as abstract as Python, not as intelligent as Python, but as silly. And that's it. As silly.

[Beck Bennett]

And this is a very simple.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I got to do it.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then now what do you do?

[Beck Bennett]

Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's a weird thing to find yourself there. Most people don't ever get to do that thing, so they're always chasing it.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I got to do it. And I did it pretty well. I could have done one more year.

[Beck Bennett]

One more year.

[Bob Odenkirk]

David was sick of la. He's like, I'm not living my life here. I'm moving to New York. And we just, at that point, you know, nowadays you, I guess, zoom and write stuff, but back then it was like, well, then we're done. And, you know, so I felt like I did it. But then it's like, you're in the wilderness and I don't know what to do next. And.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

I mean, clearly you've. Yeah. Redefined yourself many times.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. I mean, I've done many things and some of them have worked pretty well.

[Kyle Mooney]

I'd also say during that period, I mean, when we were coming up our sketch group, Good Neighbor, we were doing stuff at the UCB in, like, 2007 through 2010. Before you walked in here, you were talking with our good friend Mike Mitchell, who has a podcast here at Headgum, who is a member of the Birthday Boys.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You were looking out for younger people, younger comedians. And that's. How incredible is that. That, like, oh, wow, Bob Odenkirk is going around helping people, helping Tim and, like, Tim and Eric. This is all of that era.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You brought stuff that became formative for a whole new generation. I mean.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, it's obvious.

[Beck Bennett]

I call you like the Godfather. You guys are gonna do it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I mean, if somebody came to you and you saw him and you thought, ah, they got it. They got. They got a great thing there. You know, after all that you've seen and done.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

In every way. If they came to you or you had the opportunity to interact, you'd say, like, you want to hear what I think? It's okay if you don't, but here's what you're doing. Right. And here's what you should think about and here's where you can go with this. And I always felt like my learning curve was so long and slow, and if I can shorten that for somebody, that's awesome.

[Beck Bennett]

And get something funny out into the

[Bob Odenkirk]

world, I mean, make it easier for them to understand what matters in the business or what matters even about the project that they're doing. Like, you're doing all this stuff and just, you know, this is. The part that I'm seeing is working really well. You know, you want to focus there.

[Kyle Mooney]

I'm just remembering.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So if you can do that, you do it. You know what I mean?

[Beck Bennett]

I mean, it's. It's. It's just incredible how. Yeah. I mean, how generous you are. Not everybody would be that generous because you care so much about sketch comedy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know, I don't.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You know.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And you want to make.

[Kyle Mooney]

Just remembering that you are the voice of Bowel.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I love doing all those. All those commercial toys. I was the single. I was the voice of Cinco. And then I had that laugh in every word. The goal was to have the laugh at Diet Coke. It's for you. It's like he's laughing and every word is making him so happy that he can't.

[Beck Bennett]

He can't get it out.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He can barely get past his laugh, his joy.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, do you feel like you're. Do you miss, like, being able, like, having that outlet to be, like, silly, super dumb, super dumb? Or is it kind. Yeah, you do.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. My son and I have been doing, essentially, Bob and Ray about once a month where we come up with three characters and we write it, really. And then I do the character and he interviews me. And what else do I have that's so fun? Yeah. The play.

[Beck Bennett]

How old is he?

[Bob Odenkirk]

He's 27.

[Beck Bennett]

Okay.

[Kyle Mooney]

You guys have done a few things.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's got a pilot now that he wrote. I didn't help, but it's really great. Yeah, I do miss it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I. I find little moments to do silly stuff in the action films, but not much. You can't really be that broad. You can't do it. I feel like.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. And it's.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So I did. Oh, did I do this? I try to get stuff in there, like references to some of the comedy. I did this in one scene or movie. I went like that, which is. We did in Mr. Show. Like, every chance we got, a character would do that.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And. Well, I try to find little things, but there. That is a different world. Man, that is a whole. And one of the reasons that was exciting about it.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. For sure.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Was like, this is weird, man. This is like I'm doing show. You know, I'm like, I'm famous in France, famous in Turkey, but I do have a penchant for it. I do have a rage problem.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That can be put to good use.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. It seems like you've. You've channeled it in a. I have.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's really fun, man.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Yeah, it's. I mean, you're incredible in it, but it is like you seeing you sitting on, like, just boiling with rage, it's like, that's such a different experience than doing sketch comedy. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But like, there is there not at the core, something connected? Because Eric Idle says in his biography, and I love this line, he had seen beyond the Fringe. Yeah. Which was Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Jonathan. Oh, gosh, I'm gonna forget their names. You see who's beyond the Fringe, because they're all famous comedians or writers or playwrights. Great group for people who went on to make everything cool. And he saw it when he was in college and he said this was comedy with anger in it. And I think what he's saying is, and you know, we love the Carol Burnett show in our house. When I was a kid and I loved it, and one of the reasons I loved it was it was adults being silly and enjoying each other, and that was genuine. They really liked each other and they really were laughing at each other and they were trying to also crack each other up. And I liked it a lot. And I needed that energy. I needed to see that was possible, that adults could like each other.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And be kind and be silly and fun. And you needed that. The world needed it. Python was what Eric saw in the Fringe. I saw in Python. Here's that anger that I have in me twisted around and turned into silliness and fun.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And that's great. I need that. I want that out. That's just where I want to go.

[Beck Bennett]

That's cool.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What are the. Who's in the beyond the Fringe? Alan Bennett. Alan Bennett, famous playwright.

[Kyle Mooney]

Peter Cook.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Peter Cook. One of the. Maybe the funniest man who ever lived. Jonathan Miller. Jonathan Miller. I don't know what Jonathan Miller went on to do, but I think he directed.

[Beck Bennett]

And Dudley Moore.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And Dudley Moore, you know who he is?

[Kyle Mooney]

Very talented pianist. Dudley Moore.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. Peter Cook. Do you know who Peter Cook was?

[Kyle Mooney]

I don't know.

[Beck Bennett]

I know the name, but I don't know his work.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So he was. He did Derek and Clive with Dudley Moore. It was just an improvised thing where they would go to Electric Ladylance Studios after their Broadway show and be drunk off their fucking asses and just talk. And it's really funny stuff. And this guy, he started a magazine in England. He wrote a bunch of movies. I've sort of seen a lot of his work and read a lot of his work, and I think he's probably the funniest guy who ever lived.

[Kyle Mooney]

Really.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, the smartest, silliest guy who ever lived. And also doesn't try at all. There's no sweat in anything that he does.

[Beck Bennett]

So if we wanted to see. Read his work, see his work, well,

[Bob Odenkirk]

the best thing to do would go be. Check out Derek and Clive.

[Beck Bennett]

Derek and Clive. Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's Great. It's on YouTube. There's a bunch of Derek and Clive.

[Kyle Mooney]

What. Anyway, what is the. Okay, another.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So anger.

[Beck Bennett]

Anger, anger.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Which I see there.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Which you can see in a lot of your. Your characters. Your sketch characters as well, which. Something that was, like, very influential. I mean, I'll let you say. I was just gonna say, though, it's, like, very influential to me. Like, I love that, like, anger. And so, like, Ben Stiller did a lot of, like, a lot of psycho characters.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

It was interesting. I. I didn't know this until just recently that, like, I mean, I know you wrote Motivational speaker, but you played the. I always saw a comparison between you and Phil Hartman and that you played the dad at Second City and then he played the dad on snl.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, that's right.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

It's just.

[Bob Odenkirk]

By the way, they did that scene after I left snl. But did you?

[Beck Bennett]

Didn't you. You left snl. You left SNL to come back.

[Kyle Mooney]

The one we know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I was only there with Chris, so I did the Second City show while I was a writer at Saturday Night.

[Beck Bennett]

In between your third and fourth season, right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yes.

[Beck Bennett]

And then you came back for your fourth season.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Then I came with Chris, Adam and Spade and that crew came aboard, and Chris Rock and I worked with those guys and had a great time with those guys. And it was my most satisfying year at snl. That final year. I finally kind of understood how to write a sketch that would work for the show. Here's all these young guys. Nobody's helping them. I'm like, I'll help you.

[Beck Bennett]

I. I kind of get it now.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Might be able to do this. And finally. And I'd done motivational speakers months before, and I was. You know, they should let Chris do that here. But I understand Lawrence, you know, doesn't really want people to bring their Groundlings or Second City stuff directly exactly the way it was done on those stages. I get it.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it's fine. And. But then the year after, after I left, then Chris was sort of important enough to be able to say, I just want to do this sketch. And so they let him do it.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, wow. I thought it was like that year, your last year.

[Bob Odenkirk]

No, I left, but Lauren gave me credit. I mean, gave me credit on the show.

[Kyle Mooney]

He came, the character did a couple. There was a couple.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Then after that, he did it more. And I always told Chris, I said, okay. He said, I want to keep doing it. And I go, okay, just do me a favor. Because I knew, and I know how that show gets in people's heads. Yeah. I've seen so many actors. I said, don't start at the end. Whenever you write the sketches from here on out, whatever you do, don't start at the end.

[Beck Bennett]

Like, build to something.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Build.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And what was the next time he did it? He enters the sketch by breaking through a wall.

[Beck Bennett]

I'm like, yeah, you did exactly. He's like, come on, I wanna get to it. Yeah, Yeah. I wanna get right to it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's because on that show, when you get that big laugh, you're like, can we just go there? Let's just do that right away. Let's just go right to that. Start there, and then we'll just stay there. Which is kind of impossible.

[Beck Bennett]

It's impossible. Cause also, what sounds like a big laugh on the show when you're watching does not sound that big when you're in the studio. It has to be like, big, big. You know what I mean? Like a good sketch doing. Well, it took me a while to realize, like, it doesn't sound like ucb, where it's like a packed small room. It's kind of like you get a laugh, but it's not like bringing down the house.

[Kyle Mooney]

Also, I mean, it probably goes without saying, it should be obvious, but I think two of the sketches we did that I think are best that are personal favorites. Both of them, we tried to recur. We did the second version, and it's just. You can't repeat it. No, never that magic. Whatever it is. As much as you try to, like, kind of add on to the jokes, it's always just a sort of sad imitation of.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, Yeah. I always wished we could have done a movie because. And just let it.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, my God.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That character. Character. Become a More dimensional character get into

[Beck Bennett]

that psyche and like, how we kind of started.

[Bob Odenkirk]

There's a lot of touchstones of the time, you know, motivational speaking and, and make. And improving. Self improvement.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You know, it's so funny. Like, and I'm this again, why am I the comedy philosopher here? But like just the phrase, when you're living in a van down by the river, like I, as a whatever seven year old, when I was like, that's funny.

[Beck Bennett]

Like, that is sad and pathetic. I get who that guy is right away. Yeah, it's so funny.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Where's this river?

[Kyle Mooney]

What does his van look like?

[Beck Bennett]

How long has he been there?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, well, you can picture it. Getting up in the morning, throwing the back doors open.

[Beck Bennett]

This is.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Should I, should I walk in the water? It's kind of dirty. Oh, well, I gotta wash. Wash off

[Kyle Mooney]

a little Shakespeare over there.

[Beck Bennett]

Maybe convincing himself that this is life, this is what he wants, and this is how you really live. Speaking. While we're on snl, you, while you were there, you shared an office with Conan and Ben. But Ben was only there for a little bit.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But yes, both. And both things are true. Ben was there the first year I was there at the end. He was there for five shows and we shared an office and we wrote a sketch about MTV spring break. And Lauren said, no one watches mtv. And we were like. And then Ben left.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, he's like, all right, I'm out of here. I'm gonna get an Emmy award for my sketch show on MTV with. With Bob. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Which at the, you know, the show is always. It struggles to catch up sometimes with the culture, you know, but they've, they've done a pretty good job of it.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, I think they've kept up.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But yeah, so shared with. And then. And then with Conan, which was awesome.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. I've heard a couple stories about how you guys were just like immediately so silly and.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, well, it was Conan and Greg and me and Smiggle. And Smiggle. I was there really just to help Robert Smigel and he deserved that. He was such a good contributor to the show. I mean, he really. The list of sketches that he wrote that are.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Just wonderful, solid sketches and not the recurring stuff, which is fine.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But the number of one off, brilliant pieces, you know, Steve Martin, I'm not gonna phone it in tonight. You know, just there, there are so many. And so I was there as his sidekick to help him. Really.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I was fine with that. Cause he was brilliant and he knew how to make that show work. And then Conan and Greg came four shows later, and we had so much fun together. We all connected. And then Greg left pretty early.

[Beck Bennett]

There's when in those offices, obviously you're like, up. We're up for like 24 hours sometimes. It's just like so silly and weird. And I hate to launch this on you, but there are lots of stories of like weird, disgusting, funny, strange shit that happened in those offices. Yeah. Is there anything that comes to mind, like the most?

[Bob Odenkirk]

The thing that's in the documentary about Jim Downey. I can't believe there's footage of that. Oh, the goo balls.

[Beck Bennett]

Wait, the goo balls. I don't.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You guys in the writer's documentary that just came out and the one about Jim Downey. Jim Downey documentary.

[Beck Bennett]

Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Downey wrote it and I did an interview. Oh, right, right on it. And then I'm watching it and I'm in bed. I'm kind of like, that's enough of that. And my wife is continuing to watch it. And then one night, Bob Odenkirk found this box of these balls that were sent by a toy company. And I'm like, are you what? They're going to talk about that? And then I look and they have footage. Lori Jo Hoekstra, nor McDonald's assistant, who was our assistant at the time, had videoed us doing this thing that was insane. And that destroyed the wall in the writer's room when you enter, it would be the wall to the right side. Those are that huge room, right?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

On the 17th floor. Not. Not where you guys. Did you guys do your read throughs up there?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, we did. Yeah, yeah. In that big room. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So right there, somebody sent us a. Well, you can see it. Yeah, you really should see it. It's insane. And it was crazy. I mean, nobody was drunk or anything. But it. We got this box of balls that were like squishy and they had like a nylon covering. And I was always looking for any reason not to write down my bad ideas. So I'm like, you know, company thought we would put it on TV or put it in a sketch. What we never used.

[Beck Bennett]

They still do that. People send stuff and like, it's never been done.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's not going to happen. I'm not going to do that anyway. Or whatever. It's a slight distraction. And then I took a scissors out, cut it, cut it open again. Anything not to write.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it's kind of sticky and it's pliable, of course. It's like goo and we had. Did you guys have a dartboard still?

[Beck Bennett]

No, I don't think so.

[Bob Odenkirk]

We had a dartboard.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it was on that wall, so it's sticky. And I take it and I throw it hard, and it goes. And then it goes. And then it goes. It rolls down the wall slowly. And then there's a dartboard right here. I'm like, well, throw it a couple times. And then I'm like, well, give me a dart. See if we can't hit that moving target. And so the whole rest of the night was everybody on the whole staff except Smigel. And you see it in the video. You see Smigel, and everyone's running around laughing. 3am like crazy. Hundreds of holes in the wall. Hundreds.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, my God.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Downey was throwing them. He's the head writer.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He's the adult.

[Beck Bennett]

Everybody was just sewing to the door.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Sprigal's sitting there writing, and we had the greatest time. And if you could make that work as a thing, like a toy.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You get gooey sticky balls. You get darts, and you have to get a wall because you have to replace that wall after that night.

[Beck Bennett]

That's it. That's it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So that would be the hard part, would be with each shipment, you get how many? 12 walls.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Or at least some big ply board.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Big squares.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But we had that huge wall.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So we used the whole thing. We're throwing two balls.

[Beck Bennett]

That is three.

[Bob Odenkirk]

We're stopping them. We're making them. We're guiding the ball. Guide it. Drop it down towards that.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So you get it.

[Kyle Mooney]

You're, like, getting good at it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, we're getting good.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Didn't exist before.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Really, really mad.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And he didn't get mad at me.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I was. And I said to my wife, oh, now I know I didn't get fired for that, because everyone did it.

[Beck Bennett]

Everyone did it. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

So the fact. If Downey hadn't done it and Frank and everybody, I probably wouldn't. That would have been my last show.

[Beck Bennett]

Wow.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They pull. They. They fixed the wall in, like, three days.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They. They sent some people right up there. They tore it right down, put a new one up and said, don't around ever again. Lauren got mad at me a couple times, and he. He was right, too.

[Beck Bennett]

I was just from, like, goofing around like that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I was trying to, like, in my defense, I was a jerk.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, that's a good excuse. I mean, that's why a lot of

[Bob Odenkirk]

great comedy writers here to goof Around. Around.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we were doing that all the time. Like, I remember, like, what's the thing you guys did. Oh, man.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Up in the offices.

[Beck Bennett]

I don't know.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Probably you can admit something that might have been.

[Kyle Mooney]

Sent us a video recently of me, like, fully just in my underwear doing something.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. We were like, climb up wrestling on each other. And like, I don't even. I did not even remember it. We were like doing a photo shoot.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Because you're so bleary. Yeah. Tired.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. I remember Jay coming in once and pretending a sriracha bottle was his penis and squirting sriracha all over our desk.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Sure.

[Beck Bennett]

Getting hoverboards and zooming down the halls on them and bailing out and like. Or like the little shoes that had, like, wheelies.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a recipe for trying to think what else.

[Beck Bennett]

Peeing in jars and stuff. Just. Just for the hell of it.

[Kyle Mooney]

The idea though, you were. You touched upon this, though, that, like, you're watching this documentary, you're like, maybe drifting off and then this, like hyper specific memory is just being displayed for you. Like. Oh, my God, I have. Like, I haven't thought about that. And like, it's fully documented and now potentially a lot of people can know about this. Like.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Very specific moment in my life.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Like a day, like an evening, essentially.

[Bob Odenkirk]

That was one of the craziest things ever. Crazy feeling to sit up and watch that. And it goes on for a while.

[Kyle Mooney]

Just a whole section on the good ball.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. It was a chapter. It was a chapter. And it's important. And I'll be honest with you, I was thankful they gave me credit for it because I was afraid.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, that is.

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Who came up with it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Also. But I was also the temerity of this writer who's not really helping very

[Beck Bennett]

much, who hasn't gotten much on.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I'm here to open shit up and throw it at the wall and get everyone throwing. Distracted from their work and ruining a wall in Rockefeller. So that's why you hired me. You pay me. That's what I do.

[Beck Bennett]

I'm gonna save all my good stuff for my own.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. I'm gonna do a show that in three years they're gonna write. If you're sick of snl, I got a show for you.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, well, so many shows come out of SNL like that. Like, even like Portlandia or like. Yeah, I think you should leave.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that.

[Beck Bennett]

It's a common thing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. It's just used as a bludgeon to put down the granddaddy.

[Beck Bennett]

Right, Exactly.

[Kyle Mooney]

There's so much that we'd. That I would love to talk about.

[Beck Bennett]

I know, but it has been a minute. It has been a minute.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I mean, I can go on and on.

[Beck Bennett]

Well, we, we do have another portion that we'll get into.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, okay.

[Beck Bennett]

I mean, it's, it's not even, it's nothing notable, but I will. It's just there I was, I was going to ask how you think you've changed from those early days to now. And like even just seeing some clips of you that have been passed around on the Internet, like the one with Mike Birbiglia where you're like, he's like, who Are you jealous of people with small children? I saw you talk about how you've. You were changed from after you had your heart attack.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

About creating space.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Because that's like where life is. And it just seems like.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And that's been hard to do, but I've done it.

[Beck Bennett]

But because you've been busy.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Very hard to do. Especially when you work to have a career in show business where essentially you tell yourself you are lucky if you get anything right. Anything.

[Beck Bennett]

And if you have something, do not

[Bob Odenkirk]

stop moving and do not stop working.

[Beck Bennett]

Don't let go.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Because this is the hardest thing. Yeah. I've been able to do it. I mean, what's the question?

[Beck Bennett]

I guess the question is it seems like I just see this, like wisdom.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, is it a wisdom or a lack of deficiency? Has my deficiency? Have I reached normal human consciousness from being in a deficit? When I look at that SNL and Mr. Show, I was pretty self educated on comedy. I learned a lot from Smigel and Downey and all. But I really had dug in there and spent a lot of time thinking about it and watching it closely and asking, what's going on here? What is this sketch? How is it constructed? What's really going on? I'd done that thought, but what I hadn't done is any kind of social growth. You know, SNL and everything we do movies and everything we do is. It's social. We have to work together. You can't do anything alone. You can't make a movie alone. You can't make a TV show alone. And I was just in such a deficit in that department when I was 25, 26, all the way through 30 something, you know, I got, I got aware of it during Mr. Show. That's when I was aware that. And probably it came from Being having a degree of satisfaction with the work I was doing. Like, okay, okay, Hammond, you're doing it. This is that. You wanted that sketch show. You're doing it. This is it. This is what it looks like. You're doing it pretty good. It's pretty good. So now you know what's going on. And what do. You can't. You can't distract yourself with this. Yeah, but I'm trying to achieve this thing. Get out of my fucking way. Get out of my fucking way. Everybody shut up. Come on. I have this idea. I've got this vision. We can go there. It can be great. I know it's there. And now you don't have that anymore. You're like, yeah, there it is. Yeah, we all see it.

[Beck Bennett]

It's like, yeah, we are celebrating you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And now what's going on? Now we're. What's going on with you? You are still a nut.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. And you're. There's something that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And then that question still takes a long time for you to go, yeah, what is going on with you, man?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And so if I'm looking at chapters, you know, I. I think, you know, there's a. There's a chapter that. It is even after Mr. Show, although I became aware of it, I'd say during the work of that show, you know, after that, I made some movies. And I was so consciously trying not to be difficult or a stickler about things. Yeah, I was really. You know, because I just didn't want to be my dad, and my dad was. I didn't know him that well, but when I did know him, everybody was an asshole. That guy's a fucking asshole. I was like, I get that. It's just unreal.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Like, everyone's an asshole. Everyone. And I was like, on some level, that's what I was doing. You guys don't get it. You don't get it. God damn it. Don't you see? What we're supposed to do is this. And, like, then I went and made some movies where I really made it. Maybe I overdid it. Of, like, I don't get this scene. I don't know why it's any good, but you like it. We're just gonna shoot it the way it is. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna bring up. Doesn't work for me. I don't get it. Tell me what the joke is and let me help massage it. So I get it.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I just made a couple projects where I really was trying. I just want. I Didn't wanna be my dad. That's it. And then that sort of didn't. Wasn't satisfying either. And it's just really, there's some happy medium that you have to try to achieve. You know, it's weird when you have a vision for something. It is a bit magical, right? Because you're like, is this. Why do I think so strongly that this is a good idea? I don't have any proof, whatever it is. It's a TV show, a movie, a poem.

[Beck Bennett]

I'm kidding about poems.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But whatever it is, I mean, I

[Beck Bennett]

could see it, though.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But you have a gut feeling, and that's a great thing, and it's a gift. And I think what I realized after those projects that fell short as well was like, you have to be considerate and you have to be empathetic and you have to open up and listen to other people. But in the end, you're not being responsible if you don't do everything you can to make the thing work. I was abdicating responsibility instead of handling responsibility in a more kindly and human way. I was just saying. All right, then I won't say anything.

[Beck Bennett]

Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I don't get it. I won't say anything. You'll just do it your way, and I'll try to deliver on that. That's not good either. You got to bring all of yourself to everything, and you have to figure out how to do that in a way that is not. It doesn't have anger and cruelty and, you know, short. Shortness of temper with it, you know?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And so that was the journey there. And I really. Hopefully. Here's the thing that's hard is I'm always doing things that are a little out of my reach, you know, And I think that's cool. And I kind of can't help myself. Yeah, but that means you're going to fall short. You're not going to succeed at all these things. They're going to suck. It's going to end up. And you're going to go, like, didn't work. But while you're doing it, you got to give everything, everything. And I learned that from sort of, like I said, making these projects, they kind of fell short, and I wasn't happy with them. And I'm like, well, yeah, but I'm trying to be cooperative, okay. And then I just started watching people around me, like Vince Gilligan, who's a very kind person who made Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul and now Pluribus. And Vince, you know, could be a tyrant if he wanted to be. He's certainly gifted and visionary enough to

[Beck Bennett]

tell, yell at people, listen. Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And he is the sweetest, kindest, gentlest, patientest human you'll ever meet. And like, going, well, if he can do that, but he gets it his way.

[Beck Bennett]

Right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

But he does not go, hey, you like it that way? Go ahead. Good luck. He's like, no, no, I don't get it. Show me what it is. Well, see, I'm just trying to get this thing.

[Beck Bennett]

He's great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

He works here, but he is listening and he is. So I've been on that journey now of trying to split that hair of like, a vision that you're pursuing and a degree of confidence that can carry a project, but also, you know, some intake and some consideration for people.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Well, that's incredible. That's. I mean, from this, from where we are, it seems like you're doing it, and it's an incredible example for all of us. You know, still, you always love it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And the other thing, and I know you guys want to wrap this up and I won't shut up, is you do have to be willing to fail miserably and look like an asshole.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You have to go, like, this may not work. And like, when I'm doing the training for nobody, I'm thinking, if this works, Conan o', Brien, Adam Sandler, David Spade are going to watch this movie and go, what is on the TV right now?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

When did that happen?

[Beck Bennett]

Right, right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And it's really a prank to make my old friends laugh and go, like, what just happened?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah, that would be the.

[Bob Odenkirk]

The win. The fail would be. It's horrible. And people go for years go, what's a movie that is considered the worst action film?

[Beck Bennett]

It's so bad, it's funny.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's a one word Jeopardy. Oh, you all got it right. What is nobody. And. And so.

[Kyle Mooney]

So what?

[Bob Odenkirk]

So what?

[Beck Bennett]

So what? Yeah, who cares? That's still a huge success. You got to do that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Who the fuck am I? It's all gonna go away, right? I'm gonna die again. And then four years later, not that long, it'll be like, who was he?

[Beck Bennett]

What happened?

[Bob Odenkirk]

He did what? Yeah, so who gives a shit?

[Beck Bennett]

So just go at it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, you always got that.

[Beck Bennett]

You always got that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

All right, did we do your podcast or did we not?

[Kyle Mooney]

You know, now the actual podcast begins.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, this.

[Beck Bennett]

So we have the podcast within the pod. So that's the real. I mean, that's kind of the real podcast. Now we kind of the idea is

[Kyle Mooney]

we don't know what our podcast should be about.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I like that.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, thanks. Well, we'll see what happens.

[Beck Bennett]

What we just did was great. Yeah, we'll see what this is. But so, yeah, we don't know what it's about.

[Kyle Mooney]

What do you think we, we should, what should our podcast be about?

[Bob Odenkirk]

I, I, I sent this in.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Okay. Well, we don't know it.

[Beck Bennett]

We don't know. Oh, so we're gonna hear now and

[Bob Odenkirk]

then we're gonna try it. I'd like to see what I called it. Can I look out? Exactly what I called it. Someone visiting me the other day and they came over and we walked the dog and all I talked about the whole time and I couldn't stop myself. And I pointed it out, I said, all I'm talking about was entering some

[Kyle Mooney]

sort of access code to get the idea.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I just had a great title for it. I had a great title for it.

[Kyle Mooney]

I have the title.

[Bob Odenkirk]

If you, what is it? You have it.

[Kyle Mooney]

Los Angeles is Rotting Infrastructure.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Los Angeles is Rotting Infrastructure.

[Beck Bennett]

Wow. Okay.

[Kyle Mooney]

Okay, great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This friend is visiting from Vancouver.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

A young actor. And I can't get my mouth to stop going like, well, I mean, think about it. Under these streets is these are 120 year old sewers.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They were not built. Do you realize that this neighborhood was originally considered like a, like the forest, like going, you're going away for the weekend to come to this neighborhood. So they didn't build full streets here. They didn't think to. Why would they. These street lights. Look at the, look at the wires up there. You know, like two weeks ago, one of those boxes fell down, just fell off the wire. Could have killed somebody. I'm like, I'm talking about LA infrastructure. Look at these sidewalks. I can't get myself to stop.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Okay, so, well, let's do a podcast.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Ladies and gentlemen, so how do you do this?

[Kyle Mooney]

We're going to be right back with

[Beck Bennett]

the, we're calling it the infrast, the LA's rotting infrastructure.

[Kyle Mooney]

We'll be right back with LA's rotting infrastructure. See you soon.

[Beck Bennett]

See you soon. What's up? Well, now we're back. We're starting the show.

[Kyle Mooney]

Exactly.

[Beck Bennett]

We're back from last week.

[Kyle Mooney]

Sure.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. So it's. Well, as you know, if you're here listening, it's our podcast.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yes. Well, you know that we've spent a decent amount of time discussing some problems, some issues, sort of at the core of the city, the City of Angels,

[Beck Bennett]

the city that we live, Los Angeles. Yeah. Because there are some. It's an old city starting.

[Kyle Mooney]

Some. Sometimes it's starting to feel more like the city of devils, I would say, because.

[Beck Bennett]

Because of the rotting infrastructure.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's exactly what I was talking about.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah. Which is our show. LA's rotting infrastructure. That's what it's all about. You told us. LA's rotting infrastructure. That's what we'll talk about with Beck and Kyle. Yes, yes.

[Kyle Mooney]

While we're here, we got a great guest, I think a fellow LA resident.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, I've been here for like 20, like 30 years. Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Wow. Wow, 30 years.

[Kyle Mooney]

Can I guess I should just say.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Bob Odenkurt, comedy writer X actor.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Pretty much full time now. You know, cataloging. Well, mostly I focus on sewers. The sewer system. But yeah. And that's a personal choice.

[Kyle Mooney]

And it's, you know, one thing that I got to say that I've drawn so much inspiration from is.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You know, I bet back. And I also come from comedy. You know, that's where we were for a long time. And seeing that you have had so many evolutions.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You went from comedy to drama to action. And now to be dedicating yourself to something that's. I think for a lot of people it could be sort of revolting.

[Beck Bennett]

Well, which is the sewers. You're focusing on the sewers.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It isn't pleasant.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

In every way. I mean, the thing itself just taken broken down to its bare bones. And sometimes it is bones. People throw out chicken bones or whatever, right.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You're literally talking bones. And I'm not meaning that, by the way.

[Kyle Mooney]

That's hilarious.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, that is. It is really funny the way that you tied it into that, even with that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And we'll just call it slurry. You know, it's a kind of term when you're dealing with that and the question marks of, you know, PVC piping and the different composites that we're dealing with now. And asking the question now, what are we? Where are we? What kind of city are we? How much sewer age can we put? You know, com. How much can we renew, rediscover and rebuild? And how much can we afford xxx VY PVC composite material with an E, not a. The French material. Meaning.

[Beck Bennett]

I didn't know it was the thing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's the composite thing itself. And so that's where I'm at right now. That's where my head's at. And it's where frankly, my feet are at because I'm walking the streets, checking out Every site, writing it down, taking pictures, asking, interviewing. Well, not. I don't use my arms. Just talk to people.

[Beck Bennett]

You just talk to people on the street. And, and it's a. Okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

So the PVC is what we're trying to integrate.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I think the pvc, the question mark solution, concrete, some form of clay, composite, concrete versus which is really an old way of doing it. And I think it's gonna rot, it's gonna die, but it is sanitary and it is natural. And whereas the composite is going to be environmentally not as kind in both its production and in its implementation. And then over time, some of this composite piping, 300 years from now, 500 years from now, and I do think the city will last that long.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What are we going to. What's it going to be?

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What are we going to see sea levels rise? And that choice that you made today of putting a composite sewage system in.

[Beck Bennett]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Let's say it's 13 inches. I prefer the 18. And I'm. Hey, if you want to go to 21, because that's big, because that's bigger. It's going to grow and Right.

[Beck Bennett]

The city's going to. For 300 years. You're going to need.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And the amount of slurry that it's going to manage over time is going to need. The bigger it is, the more you can do wastewash. Wastewashes, which we don't do enough of.

[Beck Bennett]

And which is. Which is that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, that's.

[Beck Bennett]

It's a waste wash.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's wastewash, which Elon Musk, fingers crossed, pray to God, is working on a system of wastewash wherein you flush out the sewage pipes and the slurry from all the pipes of the city with a simple. Well, you don't snap your fingers, but

[Beck Bennett]

you turn a knob, something.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And man, I mean, he's smart. Maybe he could make it a. I

[Beck Bennett]

bet he could connect it to the mind.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But if somebody walked by and clapped, would the sensor know that wasn't a finger snap? Don't. Right. Don't flush.

[Beck Bennett]

Right, Right.

[Kyle Mooney]

And then we'd have to know the very, very specific snap. Or maybe it's some sort of reported.

[Bob Odenkirk]

One person there snap could do that and do that. And this is the. This is the world that I'm living in. And movies were fun, don't get me wrong.

[Beck Bennett]

Right. But at some point you do have to give back in a different, like social.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Don't get me wrong. Let me say that again. Movies were more fun.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes. Oh, okay.

[Bob Odenkirk]

A lot more fun than what I'm doing right now.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, but it's. It's some.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's not even important what I'm doing.

[Beck Bennett]

I was gonna say some people would call it important. Not everybody, but some people would.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But I appreciate that you guys have this show, and I know you're talking about every aspect. You're talking about the monorails, and you're talking about literally the streets and the sidewalks. I mean, that's fascinating to me, and that's something I don't know anything about. And what is this.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, this.

[Bob Odenkirk]

This thing about this rubber, sidewalk, whatever you've been discussing?

[Beck Bennett]

Oh, yeah. Well, it's a rubber.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's really in the conceptual phase right now. But, yeah, I think, like.

[Beck Bennett]

Kyle. Yeah. Black. Is it black rubber?

[Kyle Mooney]

It's a black rubber. So I feel like traditionally, when you think sidewalk, you think concrete, right?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Sure.

[Kyle Mooney]

And then maybe sometimes you'll maybe have that little strip. The little strip between the curb and the sidewalk.

[Beck Bennett]

It's goo.

[Kyle Mooney]

I was gonna say.

[Beck Bennett]

It's goo.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

The black rubber allows one. It's going to. Well, you. We get nervous about the bouncy, you know, sort of. It being a bouncy material, but it actually absorbs quite a bit. So, you know, you're walking throughout the. You know, your traction is going to be a little. It's going to be a little better. And my concern.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And I love it.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And what you're telling me is I'm very excited about it, but you can walk on it.

[Kyle Mooney]

You can definitely walk on it.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, yeah. This is the concern I have is joggers.

[Kyle Mooney]

Right.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Because a jogger is going to, if I'm not mistaken, not get as much exercise. I run a mile now. I'm running a mile on a bouncy surface. It's actually like running half a mile because the surface is doing half the work. And so AXV times 2x, subtract and divide that by don't want to know. And this is.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, we haven't even talked about that.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What do you say? Not to me. To future joggers?

[Kyle Mooney]

Well, this is. And this is something that has come up. We've been. We've. We've held community forums. The athletic community has. Has raised similar questions.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

So one of. One of our ideas at Infero is basically to have designated areas throughout the city where you can control elevation.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

You can make. You can make your workout, your walk, your run, your jog more difficult, more challenging to sort of make up for. What would just be, you know, it's a really cool material.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

And just the idea of, you know. You know, sometimes I don't know if you've ever. You drive, I imagine.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah, I do. I do.

[Kyle Mooney]

So, you know, parallel parking for. For me, always an issue.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's impossible.

[Beck Bennett]

Even with the comp. Even with the cameras and cars.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It almost makes it harder.

[Kyle Mooney]

You back your tire into the curb and you just. You know what I mean?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah. Oh, do I? Yeah. I've ruined so many hubcaps.

[Kyle Mooney]

Now imagine you're reversing into your spot and you sort of bump up. You get a nice little hop and then you land softly. It's not. Not only is it going to be better for the car, but it's going to be fun.

[Beck Bennett]

And also the. That's great.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I want to see that happen.

[Beck Bennett]

Speaking of the sewage, there's the little. In la, there's the little photos of the dolphin, you know, by the little drain there.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Drains to the ocean? Yeah. Well, we're trying to reverse that. We're trying to get the ocean to drain to your toilet and it back into your house.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

That's amazing.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Well, I mean, think about this.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You live in la. How often do you go visit the ocean?

[Beck Bennett]

I've never been.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Too much traffic. Right, exactly.

[Beck Bennett]

The park.

[Bob Odenkirk]

What if you went up to your bathroom and that was just everywhere. Just in your bedroom is ocean water.

[Beck Bennett]

I mean, you don't have to drive. That's incredible. House sales are going to go back through the roof. People are going to move back.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I've always thought, you know, I hope so. Fingers crossed. They are through the roof, as you know now. We'll build another roof and bust that thing out. That's is what I'm hoping.

[Beck Bennett]

I would hope so too.

[Bob Odenkirk]

It's the dream and it's.

[Kyle Mooney]

It's true. When I. I gotta say, when I

[Bob Odenkirk]

see this and I would like to see. And you've heard me say it.

[Kyle Mooney]

And here it goes again.

[Bob Odenkirk]

A sewer city.

[Kyle Mooney]

Well, that's what, that's what I was gonna say. Like, when I see these encryptions of the dolphins, right. I'm like, I wanna die. I actually wanna be with them. I wanna. I wanna go underneath those.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

Little.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And people laugh and joke.

[Beck Bennett]

That's not.

[Bob Odenkirk]

But the idea that water's coming back from the ocean and people just say water.

[Beck Bennett]

We're 70% water or something.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Please. And. Oh, what. What if we going to have. We going to have fish in our house, right?

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Elon, please.

[Kyle Mooney]

I know he's.

[Beck Bennett]

Elon, please do. Do the right thing. Elon.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Mini. Dolphins. Mini dolphins.

[Beck Bennett]

Mini dolphins.

[Bob Odenkirk]

They could swim back up the sewage into your home.

[Beck Bennett]

You come, you have a little.

[Bob Odenkirk]

You wake up in the morning about another day. Dolphins swimming around your bed.

[Beck Bennett]

What am I on vacation all of a sudden?

[Bob Odenkirk]

Making you happy and making you smile. So this is all I wish, a pipe dream that this is. Yeah, Pipe dreams. I wish it was pipe dreams. And why not that? Well, you're not sewer. Focus.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

We're gonna call this episode Pipe Dreams.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I love it.

[Beck Bennett]

It's been fantastic talking.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Thanks. The more we can get the word out and the more work we can do, you know, brainstorming, the better.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mooney]

So we're such big fans of Mr. Show.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, thanks.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, absolutely.

[Beck Bennett]

So we're really loving that you're figuring out this.

[Kyle Mooney]

Yeah.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Yeah.

[Beck Bennett]

Thank you.

[Kyle Mooney]

Oh, thank you.

[Bob Odenkirk]

We use the toilet a lot on Mr. Show.

[Beck Bennett]

That's probably how you got involved sketches.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Or was everybody using.

[Kyle Mooney]

It was.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Oh, everybody. The whole cast would go, I have to use the toilet.

[Kyle Mooney]

I'm just imagining Paul F. Tompkins.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I know, right?

[Kyle Mooney]

Sewer city. That's really special. These are the type of ideas and the discussions we will continue to have. We're so lucky to have Bob Odenkirk

[Beck Bennett]

help us solve the problems.

[Kyle Mooney]

A real innovator in this. In the development of sewer cities.

[Bob Odenkirk]

I'm making my way trying to find something to fix all of us.

[Beck Bennett]

Thanks, Bob.

[Kyle Mooney]

All right, well, we'll see you guys next time on LA's rotting infrastructure.

[Bob Odenkirk]

Thanks so much.

[Beck Bennett]

Thanks so much. Wow, that was great. That was so fun.

[Kyle Mooney]

You did great.

[Beck Bennett]

Thank you. You did great.

[Kyle Mooney]

You kind of. It's nice to be in a position where you just let Bob.

[Beck Bennett]

I know, I know. Because we've looked up to him for so long and his idea was great. I love the direction of being as mundane as possible.

[Kyle Mooney]

He told us, is it fair to give a peek?

[Beck Bennett]

Yes. Yes.

[Kyle Mooney]

We said, like, we're gonna do a pod. We're gonna do a whole new podcast. He's like, how do you want to do it? We're like, well, it can be genuine or surreal. And he's like, let's make it boring.

[Beck Bennett]

Yeah, but it was a.

[Kyle Mooney]

But it was a silly boring.

[Beck Bennett]

It was a silly boring. And I do think, like. I mean, I kind of. I really like taking a direction with the podcast with Uber.

[Kyle Mooney]

I know, let's. I think we should be open to letting the guests be like, do you have any vision for this? Yeah, I think that's a good. That's a. That's a fun thing. I don't think we have to do

[Beck Bennett]

it every time, right.

[Kyle Mooney]

Because we're going to want to lead the lead the way.

[Beck Bennett]

And not all of our guests are necessarily being comfortable, like doing a bit and being comfortable with whether they're doing it right or not. You know, some people might be like, I don't know what you want, but Bob was very comfortable with that. It's very funny.

[Kyle Mooney]

Well, check out the patreon patreon.com what's our podcast? Thank you so much for joining us in the Batcave.

[Beck Bennett]

Yes, and check out Normal the Normal, Bob's new movie. Thanks for joining us in the Batcave. See you guys next week.

[Kyle Mooney]

What's Our Podcast is a Headgun podcast created and hosted by Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney.

[Beck Bennett]

The show is produced and engineered by Richelle Chen and Anya Kanofskaya with production support from Ali Khan and Ryan Lutzow.

[Kyle Mooney]

Our executive producer is Anya Kanukaya. Katie Moose is our VP of content at Headgum. Our theme music is made by us.

[Beck Bennett]

For more podcasts by headgum, visit headcum.com or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Kyle Mooney]

Hi, I am Mandy Moore.

[Beck Bennett]

Sterling K. Brown, and I'm Chris Sullivan.

[Bob Odenkirk]

And we host the podcast that Was Us now on Headgum.

[Kyle Mooney]

Each episode we're going to go into a deep dive from our show.

[Beck Bennett]

This is Us. That's right.

[Kyle Mooney]

We're going to go episode by episode. We're also going to pepper in episodes with different guest stars and writers and casting directors.

[Beck Bennett]

Are we going to cry? Yes, a little bit. Are we gonna laugh a lot?

[Bob Odenkirk]

A whole lot.

[Beck Bennett]

That's what I'm hoping, man. Listen to that Was Us on your favorite podcast app. Or watch full video episodes on YouTube or Spotify. New episodes every Tuesday.