
Comedian, actor, writer and director David Cross has enjoyed a long association with late night television, starting back in 1995 with his own now-legendary sketch comedy series with Bob Odenkirk, Mr. Show with Bob and David, which originally aired on HBO Friday nights at 11:30pm.
Over the years, he’s guested with just about every late-night talk show host of note, from David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Craig Ferguson and James Corden, to Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers.
But as he tells Mark Malkoff in this episode of Inside Late Night, his career might have followed an entirely different path had a 1993 job interview with Lorne Michaels for a writing position at Saturday Night Live gone another way.
Cross also discusses the late night appearance that ended up costing him a $150,000 movie studio bonus, and how he still wonders whether it was something he said that led to him not being invited back on David Letterman’s Late Show after a 2000 appearance.
Click the embed below to listen now, or find Inside Late Night on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
David Cross is currently on a 43-date standup tour. Visit his website for tour dates. He also hosts the podcast, Senses Working Overtime with David Cross. For more David, follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X.
Show Transcript
Mark Malkoff: David Cross, thanks for being here.
David Cross: Yeah, finally.
I know, it took 22 minutes. I’m so sorry. Technical stuff. {laughs] That does not happen with your podcast. You actually do them in person and it’s beautifully shot. Yeah, your podcast, by the way, I was in a bad mood this morning for numerous reasons, and I watched you and Marc Maron together. There’s nothing like old friends, comedy friends, just talking about the war stories and everything. You guys were so good.
Oh yeah, that’s a lot of what the podcast is now.
You don’t have to do any real prep, do you? Because these are your friends and it’s just kind of, the stuff just kind of flows.
Yeah, and eventually there’ll be people… I’ll just run out of, you know, old friends, and then there’ll probably be a little… but I’m not that interested in that. I don’t want to have that podcast, you know?
You should just have people you want to talk to. Who are some of your dream guests that you would want, like if you could tomorrow pick a few people, who would you want on?
I’d love to talk to AOC.
She’s my representative, by the way. I live in Queens in Astoria. I could ask her.
She owes you one.
She does.
I would like to talk to Werner Herzog. I’m talking about people I don’t know, you know? But somebody like, I don’t know, somebody that would be, we would have wildly different ideas and viewpoints, but isn’t simply a contrarian, you know? And I don’t know who that would be. There are a bunch of people, but like somebody that… no, no, that’d be an interesting podcast as well.
Conan would be good, because I mean, you did like 17 or 18 of those shows and stuff. Was that your very first talk show, by the way, a late night show? It was either that or Jon Stewart, the Paramount syndicated one that was filmed on like 24th Street.
I don’t think I was on Jon Stewart. I wrote on that show.
Maybe it was a writing credit. The internet is, there’s so much untrue stuff, so you never did stand up on the, so your debut on national… for network was Conan. It must have been in ‘94.
I believe so. That makes sense. Yeah, it was, I had done a bunch of those like, you know, Evening at the Improv and Comedy On the Road with Jon Byner type things, but that was the first late night talk show that I, I believe. I’m pretty, I’m almost positive.
So I want to talk about your podcast. You’re going to be doing a tour in the fall, and I counted, I counted something like it was like 20, is it 26 cities that you’re going to be going?
I think there are about 40 places, and I will record or tape the special in Montana, and then we’ll probably stop down for the holidays, you know? And then I’ll go back out and I’ll do the rest of Canada and Europe in the new year.
So this is hard for me to bring up, just because it’s so vulnerable because I was such a runt kid. But the reason I’m bringing this up is because there’s questions I have about it, which is the first time we met that I ever saw you, the date was Thursday, September 26th, 1996. This was, and I can tell you why in a little bit why I know this. You were, I guess, 32 and I was 20. And I’m people watching at, there was a place off of Third Avenue called Around the Clock in the Village, and I was with my friend Allie, and this was, I think, 20…
Oh, I know where that was. That was the, like, bagel place by the bookstore and what’s now the Japanese market by Angel’s Share.
I think so. Yeah, it’s something like that. So what happened is that I saw you, and this was 24 days after you did that, what was it, Bumbershoot in Seattle? Is that what it’s called? That was the first time that you realized, ”I have fans.” You had only done one season of Mr. Show, and you were like this light bulb, like people, you had no idea.
Yeah, I remember calling Bob going, people know about our show, more than one.
I knew nobody at NYU, and I was the biggest fan. So I run out, and this is 24 days after you find out that people are liking the show. And I’m into comedy. I’m doing sketch, and I’m so wide-eyed. I come out, and you were so nice, and I’m freaking out because I told you, you just had written something for George, that magazine JFK Jr. [did] with Bob. So basically, I told, I ditched my friend, and I said, wherever you’re going, can I walk with you, and can I ask you some questions as well? And he’s like, yeah, just come on out with me. Do you have any recollection of this, and I can fill in everything?
No, none.
You said, “Actually, walk with me. We’re going to go meet Janeane Garofalo.” There was a bar at Avenue B and 4th Street.
B and 4th would be…
We walk in, and Janeane’s playing a video game. She’s at a, sitting down, playing one of those car video games.
Wait, are you thinking of Ace Bar?
I think I am. Where is that?
That is B and 5th, I think.
Yes.
There are a bunch of lunchboxes on the wall.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we’re walking there, and you said also a bunch of other people from there are going to be there from The State and Saturday Night Live. And as we’re going there, I’m asking you all these questions, and this is, like, decades later, and I want to see if my memory is right. You told me you just filmed, did a movie called Waiting for Guffman. It hadn’t been out yet. And you told me at the time that you were such a fan of Chris Guest that you purposely got lost. You were riding in a car with him and gave him the wrong directions so you could spend more time with him. Is that true?
That’s not exactly true. It’s halfway. So what happened was I ended up missing, just by miscommunication, it wasn’t manufactured, but I missed the last passenger van that was going back to the city. We shot about 45 minutes outside of Austin. We were all staying in Austin. And then I was standing around going, “Well, what do I do?” And he was there. He’s like, “Oh, I’ll give you a ride.” He had a pickup truck. They had rented a truck. And he’s like, “I’ll give you a ride.” And I was like, “Great.” And inside, I’m freaking out. And I get in the truck, and it’s just one of the greatest hours I’ve ever spent. And we’re talking, he’s riffing. He was working on, not that I knew he was working on it, but what ended up being his character for Best in Show. And he also, they had delivered to the set, music that Harry Shearer had recorded for the musical, for Waiting for Guffman. And so he wanted to listen to that. So I mean, I’m just hanging out with Chris Guest. I’m listening to the music. I’m getting, you know, it’s all the insider stuff. And then I can see that our exit is coming up. And he is completely distracted. And so, I know he’s, unless I go, “Hey, man, I think that’s our exit,” he’s gonna miss the exit. And I did not say anything purposely so that he would miss the exit. And I got to spend more time. So it’s close, but that’s how it went down.
And then also, we were talking about, for Dana Carvey, and I’ve mentioned this to people that you had worked on [The Dana Carvey Show], and they’re like-
You’ve got a fantastic memory, Mark.
Sometimes.
You really do.
No, I told somebody who had worked at Carvey that you did some writing on it. And these are people that worked at the show that weren’t writers. They’re like, “No, David Cross was never there.” And I’m like, the sketch that you told me that you wrote, it was a Newt Gingrich cold open for Dana, and it was homeless people in a zoo or something? Or it was like-
No, nothing I wrote got on.
Really?
Yeah. I was only there for about, I want to say, two to four weeks at the most. And Bob, who’s tight with those guys, and we had done some Mr. Show, so they knew who I was. And he’s like, “Oh, you should bring Cross out here.” And there was like, Louis CK, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, gosh, who else was there?
Spike Feresten and Steve O’Donnell, but maybe they were there a little later. Carlock.
I think that’s where I met a bunch of those. Ready for this? For other writers? Charlie Kaufman was a writer.
Yeah. He got almost nothing on.
Nothing. He wrote the funniest f*cking sketch that was making me laugh out loud, cry about Weird Al’s brothers. So, there’s “Weird Al,” there’s “Regular Al,” and there’s “Weirder Al.” And it was really funny. And then I met Jon Glaser there, and we were in a… we shared an office, and we were trying to write the sketch. It just didn’t work, you know. And I was there, as I said, somewhere between two and four weeks, and that was it. And it was like a temporary thing, come in and punch stuff up and offer your ideas. But I don’t even remember what ideas I pitched or what I wanted to write, but it didn’t work.
The other thing you told me is, because we’re talking about Mr. Show, and at this time, very few people were aware that it was on Mondays at what, 12.30 or something like that, four episodes?
It initially was on… part of their comedy block. Right, so, it was The Chris Rock Show.
That’s probably how I discovered it, okay.
Yeah, yeah. We were part of this, the HBO late night crazy danger zone comedy block, or whatever it was. And there were a handful of shows, and I know we followed Chris Rock.
That’s a good lead-in, yeah. They were up for Emmys and stuff, you guys were up for Emmys.
Yeah, we won it. Did we win it? No, maybe not. But we were up for three, I believe, three, maybe four, but I think three over the course of it. And some of it was for music. We got one writing nomination towards the end. Anyway, the guy, they decided after our third season, and we had done the fourth, like we were about done shooting it, they said “We’re going to move you to Mondays at midnight.” We’re like, “What? Why? That’s not good.” And they were like, “Oh, college kids watch.” Something about college kids. And we knew, Bob actually knew it before I did. But Bob, pretty much immediately was like, “Well, that’s that. This is not going to work, and it’s going to die.”
But at least they had Arliss.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fun stuff.
Everyone remembers that. You told me, when we met that time also, that I was asking you about how you came up with the characters. And you told me for Mr. Show, you said that tofu ice cream president, whatever you played, that you would just put a hat on, and then add a ponytail.
That’s right.
And that’s how you came up with the character. You just were playing around.
Yeah. You know, a lot of stuff comes from riffing, whatever. But that one in particular, we were in this weird, tiny little office somewhere on some lot, like the Raleigh studio. It was tiny. And we had these weird little rooms that weren’t even, either were like angular and stuff. And some other production had been in there. I can’t remember which one. But I went to put my computer on the desk, and I opened up the drawer to put some stuff in. And there’s this hat, which we used. It was the actual hat with a ponytail stitched into it, like a wacky hat you might get at a silly store on Hollywood Boulevard or something. And then once you wear that hat, there’s only a certain kind of person in this world who would have that ponytail and that hat. So…
So that’s how you came up with it. And also, you told me at that point, when we were walking over to the bar, and you did buy me a beer, by the way. You told me when we’re walking on the way, you said, Will Ferrell’s coming over with Molly Shannon and the new lady from Saturday Night Live, which was Anna Gasteyer. It was a Thursday, and it was two days before she debuted. And we get there, and it’s Tom Lennon and Michael Showalter and me. And I’m just sitting there, and like, I couldn’t believe it. You were so cool to invite me.
I’m glad you had that experience.
No, it was amazing. Also, you told me at the time, and I remember this, and then we can actually move on and talk about real things. You told me that you had all this per diem for something you just worked on, and you got a $60 pen. What was that?
It was this movie that I had done, and it was a long shoot. Long, long, long shoot up in Vancouver. And the lead actor, Steve Zahn, who I worked with since on a couple different times, he was just the sweetest, nicest guy. I learned a lot from him. And one of the things I learned, he’s like, “Don’t spend any of your per diem. Don’t. Don’t spend any of it. Just save it up, and then at the very end, just dump it on your bed. You see how much money you have, and then that’s your fun money or whatever.” And I did. I followed his example, and I saved that. I don’t buy a lot of clothes or anything like that, so it wasn’t difficult. But yeah, so I saved up my per diem, and then I’d be able to… And it was a long shoot, thousands of dollars. It was very exciting.
Three and a half years later, I see you the next time, and this is when Janeane Garafolo guest hosted Letterman. And I had just worked at Letterman. I was in the audience. I remember Reverend Jen was there in the audience, and she had a costume on and three other people having the same. They were all… So they were…
Janeane was hosting, right? Of course. Yeah.
Yes. I’m only mentioning this because Janeane told me this. Did you know at the time when she was hosting that she was intoxicated? She mentioned to me she was.
No. I don’t… I just remember having a fun time. It was Bob and I, I believe, right?
Oh, I loved it. That’s why I was there. You guys and Galifianakis’ network television debut. He couldn’t get booked on any other late night show, and Janeane gave him that. And then slowly, Conan and all these other places were like, “Can we see videotape of your Letterman appearance?” Then he started getting booked everywhere. He killed…
I’m sure.
…annihilated that night. You only did Letterman once. How did that go with him when you did it in 2000?
I mean, I thought it was good, and I always wondered and tried not to, but couldn’t help dip into taking it personally. Like, ‘Why?” I guess… But it seemed… I watched the tape of it. It seemed fine. I remember he asked me to… I don’t remember what the entity was, but to kind of say something… He was baiting me to say something negative about something. I can’t remember what it was. And it was kind of weird, and I didn’t want to. And then I remember saying, you’re putting me in an awkward position. And that got a big laugh from the audience. And I just wondered if it was… I don’t know.I just never was on again.
You never knew with that. And I can tell you afterwards, some of the people that were not welcomed after the show for the most minor things.
It was… I mean, the only thing I can think of is because I said that thing, and then it got a big laugh. And I kind of wouldn’t… I was avoiding the… And I could tell he wasn’t…
That could have been it.
I don’t know what he was asking me. Maybe… I just don’t know.
I have to look at the tape. I have Don Giller who listens, Letterman archivist. I want to take a look. I’ve never seen it, but I’ll take a look. I’ll let you know if I see it, if I notice anything. When you were doing a Carolines in 93, an SNL audition, it started an hour late. It couldn’t have gone worse. And to make the audience wait like that, Jim Downey and the producers, to start an hour late, the energy is dead. When it was going, you could tell it was just the audience reaction and everything.
It was awful.
Did you think in your head that when you were doing this, I’m losing the biggest opportunity of my life, or this is… I’m never going to be able to do this?
Yeah, I think we all were frustrated. And you have to put that aside once you get going. But certainly the hour that we were being delayed, as it stretched from 5 minutes, 10 minutes to 15 to 20, was just really hard. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that, had we not started an hour late, perhaps everyone’s lives would be different.
You dodged a bullet. You dodged a bullet. It was the right…
Yeah, I’m very happy with the way things turned out. But less about me and about the other people in the troupe. I mean, really talented writers and actors in that sketch comedy group. And it was just sort of unfair to everybody.
But you still met with Lorne. Was that after or before that you met with Lorne for 40 minutes?
That was before. And then I had… I don’t know if it was from there. Jim Downey was so gracious and nice and really encouraging. And he was great. Because they had come up to Boston too, prior to that. And he basically gave me an open invitation to come on and write. Which is, when I was younger, that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be on SNL, you know? And so, I went to LA. Shortly after that, very shortly after that, I got hired to write on The Ben Stiller Show, to come in as a mid-season replacement. Came in, and that inarguably changed the direction of my life, my career. And from there, Lorne wanted to hire two comedy writers just to write for the women. For women.
Julia Sweeney was one of them.
Yes.
This was 93 to 94. Christine Zander, she had just left.
How do you know all this shit?
Bonnie Turner had left. I just… There’s something wrong with me, David.
So yeah, Julia Sweeney suggested Rob Cohen and myself from the Stiller show. Rob had written on The Simpsons, and Lorne knew me just from the comedy world, you know, that stuff. And so, we were out there, and we both had meetings. I’ll never forget my meeting with Lorne was so odd. And it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t, you know, there are sometimes you walk out of a pitch or a meeting, and you have a really good idea of how it went. Or an audition. And sometimes you walk out, and you don’t have a f*cking clue. And that was one of them. And I was in there for a long time, and the only reason I know that, is because when I came out, Julia and who else was there? There were a couple people that I knew. I don’t remember.
At the time, it was the ‘93. The ladies were Melanie Hutsell, Ellen Cleghorne. There weren’t many ladies at that time.
I know Julia had been instrumental in getting me out there to get a meeting. And she was really encouraged. When I came out, she’s like, “Oh my God, you were in there for so long. That’s great. It was like 45 minutes. Nobody ever meets…” I was like, “Wow, cool.” But I barely said anything. And my recollection of the meeting, and I’ve done this for other people, this is how I’d say 85% of the meeting was like this. I’ll be Lorne, and you be me, and I’ll ask you a question, and you start to answer. “What do you think of alternative comedy?”
Well, I have to say, you know…
“Because I think that it’s…” And then he would ask me a question, I’d start to answer, and then he would just tell me his thing. It was really 40 minutes of that. It was just… I didn’t think it was bad. It was what it was.
Lovitz told somebody that somebody was going to be going out to a dinner with Lorne or something. And he told that person, “Be prepared to listen!” Because Lorne, yeah, you’re just going to hear him.
And that’s… And I’ve run into him in various places over the years, and always pleasant. But it was just… It was just odd.
I want to point out a month or two after you met with him, or maybe even less, you won an Emmy. That’s that same year, September 19th, 93, you win the Emmy. And then SNL premieres like a week later. And I want to also point out, they hired multiple people that year as writers that could not write sketch comedy. I mean, they admit. One person… Well, I’ll just say it, because Sarah wrote in her book, Silverman, she got no sketches on. She got one to dress. I mean, she’s an amazing, amazing writer. It’s just that she acknowledges at the time she wasn’t ready. There was somebody else who I know who got only one sketch on. And then there’s someone else that I think got one on as well. So there were writers that, yeah, were just hired that weren’t getting stuff. So I’m saying they could have used you. And Julia has said that was the most miserable year of her life over there.
Yeah. I mean, it’s tough. I do remember. It must have been around that period, because I think Dave Attell was writing on the show, and Sarah definitely was. And I went to visit. I clearly wasn’t living here yet. So I went to visit, and I came up to the offices, and I went by the writer’s room. It’s big, open, you can see. And I remember that the best way to describe it, as I’ve described before, is everybody lifted their head up, because I came in with all this energy, like, “Hey, guys, what’s up?” And I knew half the people there. And everybody lifted their head up like there was an invisible six-pound weight that was hanging, like it was slow. And I remember that left a big impression upon me, like, “This seems terrible.”
You dodged a bullet, as I said before that, because Attell would be sneaking out to do sets during the Thursday rewrites. I remember being at the show. I was in the green room… that season, and at least a couple of times, he would leave the show early to go out and do sets during SNL, like after, which you’re supposed to, I mean, you’re supposed to be there the entire time, and he just didn’t. After a while, not even really care and stuff. But they should have put him on update and stuff, or like to do commentaries. I mean, he’s a genius, but that would have been good. When you did Mr. Show tapings, was it joyous, or was it stressful? Was it just pure fun? Like, how did you handle that pressure, or was there pressure during the tapings?
It was all those things. It was more stressful and less stressful. I know this is a paradox, but because Bob was so laser-focused on stuff. So I knew that he would observe things, take care of things that I might not have noticed or wouldn’t have thought to change, but also the fact that we had to make these decisions on the fly and figure these things out made it more stressful. I do know that we don’t share the same… I love writing, I loved writing with him, I loved writing with the other writers, but that is his absolute favorite thing in the world to do. The performance stuff is less fun for him, and I’m the opposite. I like the writing, it’s fun, but at some point, I just want to go and not write, and then performing is really fun. I remember thinking, you know, we had our little stage set, you know, where we’d come out from the wings, and those never changed. And I was always on the left, stage left, and Bob was on stage right, I mean, for most of them. But I would look over, and I’d have my water and the little thing, and I’d be so psyched to do it, and Bob is just not happy, he’s not smiling. And I was like, “Come on man, this is when we’re supposed to have fun. Let’s have fun!” You know?
And it wasn’t until maybe everything was added and done that he could enjoy the process maybe somewhat?
Yeah, I mean, it was… I do think his greatest joy came in the writer’s room.
I get that. No, there are a lot of people who are like that. Didn’t Jon Hamm come to the tapings? I mean, he wasn’t even close to being famous, but wasn’t he at the tapings?
I’m not sure, but there’s a crazy list of people. I still meet people. I still meet people, gosh, I was just talking to somebody a couple days ago.
It was like the biggest thing to get into that thing. I know Margaret Cho, you could see in the audience, you could see, I think Alyssa Milano, maybe during “Fartin’ Gary.”
Oh, yeah, Alyssa Milano dated… Wait, Alyssa Milano? Is that it? Yeah, I think it was Alyssa Milano dated, or maybe I’m mixing her up with somebody, another actress, but, you know, like a hot young actress was dating a guy who did some stuff with us production-wise. Super cool guy. He was in a band. And so she’d be in the audience a lot. Yeah, it became the thing to go to, but yeah, the list of people who were there before they made it is…
Who are some of the others? Do you remember?
I know Mike White is in the audience, and I did a terrible, terrible, insulting thing on the commentary for one of the shows. “I’m like, look at this guy, and pointed out how awkward he looked, which is terrible.”
I’m so sorry. Mike White? I’m so sorry. I should know this.
Mike White, who did the White Lotus shows.
Oh, yes, okay. Yes, okay.
A very talented guy, and deserves to hate me for sure, because that was kind of shitty of me.
I had a day job at Who Wants to Be a Millionaire then, later, and we were doing Celebrity Millionaire, and it was Martin Short, I think it was like 2001, and Bernie Brillstein was there, and he goes up to Regis, and he’s like, I have these two young kids, Bob and David, and was talking you guys up. I thought that was great.
I really, of all the people that… I wish he was still alive, and I really, really, really regret that he never got to meet my wife, because he would have f*cking loved Amber. He would have loved her.
Everyone loved that guy, it seemed. I mean, definitely Mike Ovitz. There are people, business-wise, not so much, but I got to meet him then, and you just felt like you’ve known him forever. It was the warmth that exuded from that guy.
Oh, he was awesome, and he was a very big cheerleader, instrumental in Mr. Show, and our subsequent careers, Bob and I, and his son, Mike, worked on the show for a couple of years.
Was there ever a sketch that didn’t do well? Sketches that you cut that just, when you were doing the taping, it just didn’t get anything from the audience?
We never cut a sketch, but there were a couple sketches that just fell flat, and one of my regrets, I don’t have that many, but one of them was the “Clumsy Waiter” or something sketch. There was a sketch. It was a very classic, silly comedy sketch.
Oh, I know what you’re going to say. It’s the one… You hate this sketch, right? It’s the one where the waiter’s like, “Oh, we’ll pay you double, or we’ll pay for half of your cleaning.”
Yeah, yeah, it’s that one. I don’t hate it. It’s just not one of our better sketches, and Dino and Bob wanted to put a clock, a countdown clock, where it would be like, “Don’t worry, the sketch will be over,” and a countdown clock. I was like, “No, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t tell people the sketch is bad.” We went back and forth, and then eventually, I won out, and I wish I hadn’t. The watch in retrospect with that thing there, but there was another sketch that we f*cking loved so much, and we could never make it work, and it was “The Date with the Queen,” and it was based on a prank idea I had about, wouldn’t it be funny to have a party, and then you tell one person, “Hey, listen, I’m going to say it’s time to go, and everybody’s going to start to head out, but you stay behind, because there’s some stuff I want to talk about, or whatever,” but then you say that individually to every single person at the party, right? And then you’re like, “All right, guys, time to go. Buddy, thank you so much for coming,” and then everybody would stall, but everybody would want the other people to go, and I just thought, what a funny little prank to do, and then we tried to make that somebody’s idea to write that up as a sketch, and then we did these things live, and did all our sketches in front of audiences before we actually shot them, because you’d learn a lot from that, and you’d cut things that didn’t work, and you’d try to explain. You’d think, “Oh, they’ll understand this reference,” and people don’t. And you have to change it. Just the things that you learn from putting a sketch up on its feet.We could never make that work. And it doesn’t. You watch it on the it does. It doesn’t work.
With you on the motorcycle and stuff after.
That was the transition. But the transition, the actual sketch does not work.
If a sketch show, a sketch, and I would say this just with everything, even Python, if you can hit Ted Williams 400, that’s like a miracle. And you got you and Python were. I mean, I have to say just in terms of stuff that holds up like like Ted Williams beyond …like it’s amazing. Yeah. How you have a stuff still. I mean, I know that Bob was like the biggest Python fan. I know you were in terms of like Larry Sanders. There are some things that, still like, sometimes feel like dated and stuff. But your stuff is still plays. I was going to ask about The Ben Stiller Show. Bob has said that he thought The Ben Stiller Show was overpraised. Do you think that that’s true? I loves his show. I haven’t looked back at sketches lately. I thought in terms of what Ben was trying to do with SCTV, I thought it was right on.
I think the show was the whole was never greater than the sum of its parts. And some of the parts were, I think, it’s a specific type of sketch comedy, heavily parody, which is not my general cup of tea. I like a good parody, but it’s not where when I’m coming up with ideas, it’s it’s usually not that, or parody a genre as opposed to a specific thing. There was a feeling of… for me, I can’t say this for anybody else. But there’s a feeling of like, you know, who does who does Ben want to dress up like today? Is it Bono? Is it Bruce Springsteen? Is it Tom Cruise? And who does he want to do? And then you’re fitting the piece to that. You know, it’s and it was a very disparate group of writers. And I don’t think it was… I wouldn’t say overpraised because it wasn’t that praised. I mean, it won an Emmy.
I think years later, it maybe I was watching you guys winning an Emmy and you’re in the back when all of you go up and disbelief.
Oh, I was high out of my mind. I had gotten high. And so, yeah, I don’t… don’t take that into account.
What are your favorite talk shows that you’ve done? I mean, I’m looking at the 16 Conans, 16 Jimmy Kimmels, 9 Carson Daly’s. 10 Colbert, you did seven on the report where we worked together because I worked on that show. And then you did three at CBS. You did a John McEnroe show when he had his talk show 2004. What like what’s what are your some of your favorite things that you recall from going on these shows, if anything?
The my my favorite of those, all those late night show experiences were specifically… they’re very similar, but it was Colbert and Kimmel because they both are really good at rolling with whatever you do, and they’re both genuinely funny, smart, caring people who are pretty ballsy. And I have a relationship with them that goes, you know, from before they had the show and they also let me f*ck around, which I tend to do on. You know, nine out of 10 of those appearances, I’m f*cking with format or doing something silly, and they can just roll with it, and it’s fun.
Were you surprised with Colbert that that clickbait thing… that David Cross… there were headlines, David Cross walks off the Colbert Late Show?
I know it’s such I mean, yes and no. You can never be too surprised at how gullible some people are. But it was just clearly and clearly a joke.
It was a bit. It was clearly a bit. If you’re scrolling Twitter, though, and you don’t want to stop and you just see this like, you know, “David Cross walks out of Colbert.” I don’t know if you know this. You’re at The Colbert Report when I worked there. You literally were part of changing all of our lives that worked on the show. And I don’t know if you remember this. What happened is this was originally we were supposed to do 40 episodes. And if the network liked it, we were going to get picked up for like a year and then keep going with the show. It was maybe a couple of weeks into the show and it was going really, really well. And Colbert, I think it was like on a Friday. Maybe he calls us in or after a taping. And it was the first time I ever saw he was very stressed out. And he’s like, “You know, we’ve been doing great. But lately we’ve been, there’s been problems, and we have to really get on it. And, you know, we did a voiceover recently with David Cross and there’s problems with it. Why don’t you play it? Play it right now.” And then it’s you doing a voiceover. “And in other news, I can’t believe The Colbert Report got picked up for an entire season by Comedy Central.” And that was the reveal for all of us. And it was, like, I couldn’t believe that we had employment for a year and that they had you record that. And it was just like…
Oh, that’s great.
For everybody, we all just believed in the show so much. I mean, I left a full time TV gig and people couldn’t believe I was leaving to work on 40 episodes. But I I knew Jon Stewart was producing and I knew Colbert’s abilities and I just really believed in it. But yeah, that was one of that was one of the guys so smart. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think all those guys behind the desk. Yeah, he’s a really good, really good guy.
Yeah.
What are your thoughts on Norm Macdonald? He’s one of my favorite talk show guests.
Oh, Norm was amazing. And he was just a true, cool, smart, funny dude all the way to the end. You know,
And he’s one of the smartest, yeah.
He was great. Yeah. And ballsy, again.
Oh, my goodness. He,I mean, when he went, he hosted Saturday Night Live and did his whole monologue that they asked him not to do, saying that the show wasn’t funny and he was funnier than the cast and the ESPYs and stuff. Iowa.
Oh, yeah. And then, you know, the stuff with O.J. Simpson was just,
Oh, gosh, it was relentless. Him and Jim Downey. Relentless.
Yeah.
When, you know, I read something today and I was surprised. But it said that growing up in Georgia, that one of your major influences early on growing up was The Carol Burnett Show with the cast, primarily with them cracking up and breaking character. Is that true?
It was it was something that I loved. I don’t know if I’d say inspiration or whatever you said there. Younger people aren’t going to know what this is, but there used to be TV Guide. It was a little magazine that came out once a week. And it’d be by the where, you know, you checkout at the grocery store and I’d be with my mom doing shopping and I would get the TV Guide. And the very first thing I do is flip to The Carol Burnett Show listing to see who the guest was going to be. And they would have a tiny description of a sketch. I loved it. I loved the I love watching that show. I loved how much fun they were having. I loved watching Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. I it was great when I was a kid. It was I mean, anything comedy, too. I was I was in into most comedy.
Yeah. I mean, there was so, I mean, three networks and stuff. So you watch all you can get. You tell the truth sometimes when most famous people wouldn’t in terms of Richard Dreyfuss, I think, was on The View and they asked him why he did this Oliver Stone movie. And he said “For the money.” And I know that you’ve said that before. I mean, you said that The Chipmunks bought you, I believe, a house… or Scary Movie, bought you your New York place. You could move from California.
Yes.
And to do this. And you said and I couldn’t believe this, that Chipmunks paid you more, paid more than all your projects, TV books and pilots combined.
Yeah.
For you to be that outspoken. Do you think being that outspoken has affected your career at all just in terms of people not being thrilled? Certain producers?
I mean, maybe. I don’t think so, but I…
But you don’t care.
No.
You’re a guy that wouldn’t care. Like that woman, did that woman from The Chipmunks. Did she ever contact you or did you ever run into her after you went on Conan and talked to her?
What was her name?
She’s one of the producers of The Chipmunks.
Yeah, it was just terrible.
You were doing [The Increasingly Poor Decisions of] Todd Margaret in England. You were not required to even be there. And they put you. She makes you come to like a Carnival cruise ship for five days and wear a mascot costume where it could have been.
No no no.It was in 10 days total. It wasn’t five.
Wow. And so any other production, they would have just gotten an extra somebody to wear a costume like they do on movies, because you had no real lines and stuff that you could even deliver. But you felt she was messing with you, a power play or just didn’t like you.
They were really sh*tty to me right out of the gate, and I didn’t understand why. And it’s you know, I’ve talked about this a bunch, and it’s it’s well trod over. But they were difficult in a way that. At first, you’re like, “Are they being difficult on purpose?” And then it became clear that they’re they’re f*cking with me and they’re and they were terrible to my to my representation. And they would come back and go, “They’re just awful.”
And they weren’t doing this to the other actors?
Not that I know of. I have no idea. I doubt it. They were just so sh*tty, but went above and beyond. Like, like, as I said, in the beginning, it was like, “Are they aware? I mean, are they doing this on purpose?” And then eventually it became apparent they were. And and to kind of put this in the context, it wasn’t simply I got to set and they were being sh*tty. I was, we had been asking for close to a year, I want to say 10 months when we heard that they were going to be doing a third. And I was contractually obligated to do it, whether I’d be a part of it. And going back and forth. And they said, “We don’t know, we’re not sure. Maybe. We don’t think so. Might be… on and on.” The reason being is that I was about to shoot the second series of Todd Margaret, which I am a producer on, as well as all the other things. And I have, minimum 50 people who are counting on me for employment and, you know, are carving time out of their lives and have families, and saying [are] no to work because we’re all under the assumption this is going to be this is going to go. And I mean, I’m in London at the time and had been there. We were about ready. I think we were we had started pre-production. We were we had the first, I want to say, four scripts, and we’d already started pre-production people. We’ve got production studio and offices and hired people. And again, we had been asking for months and never got a straight answer. And even sometimes they said, “We don’t think so. We’re not sure, you know, the the way the script is looking now..” And then on whatever it was, I remember I remember exactly where I was. It was it was I was in Harrods with my wife, who was not my wife yet, but with Amber, and we went to the food hall. It was like a big, fancy date. You know, we’d go to the food hall and walk around. And we were in the little front thing, and I get a call. And it’s like, “Hi, David. I have,” you know, every big name, everybody from my team. You know, “I have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah on the phone for you.” And that’s only good news or bad news, ever. When you get, when everybody when your lawyer, and your manager, and your agent are on the other line, it’s only really good or really bad. And first thing my manager, Tim, goes, “Hey, are you sitting down?” And I know I know my heart sinks and I know what it is. I it’s just a I just know. I’m like, what’s going on? And then he tells me there. “So they are doing they do want you in the third Chipmunks movie and they need you to be in Hawaii” I’m in London. “They need you to be in Hawaii for wardrobe and rehearsal. I think it was like in five days or something like that.”
Oh, no. They give you five days notice?
Yeah, it was like processing this information. And then those guys are can anticipate my reaction. And they’re very upset. And they’re just talking about how awful they were. And I’m like, “I can’t I can’t even physically do that. I mean, I can’t. How can I? I don’t even have I don’t have clothes. I mean, it’s winter in London. I can’t go to Hawaii. I mean, I can’t even get on a plane that I’d have to go to,” you know, amongst all the other things. And, you know, eventually we figure this thing out. The people at Fox who produced the movie, Fox 2000, said to my guys, “If he isn’t there, we will sue you for breach of contract.” And I’m like, “I’ve got all these people here where we’ve got offices. We’ve been asking.” And they’re like, “I know, I know.” And it was just I mean, it was just terrible, terrible for everybody. And then I’m like, “Wait, rehearsals? I work in, you know, I work with puppets. I work with animated things. There’s… what am I rehearsing? What what do you mean rehearsing?” And then I get the script, and I’m in all over it. There is no… unless they did a rewrite in and I’m being, you know, this is for real, if they unless they did a page one rewrite a week prior, in which my character didn’t exist. Now, all of a sudden, it’s all the way through it, which, of course, didn’t happen. Then they were just lying. And I don’t… there’s a thing that you you see it in Washington, too, in D.C. and politics, but there’s that kind of person. And there’s the relationships that people have in certain businesses, where it’s all about the deal. And they’re at each other’s throats and “f*ck you and dadadadada.” But at the end of the day, somebody “wins” and somebody “loses.” And then they’re kind of friendly about it. You know, both parties, while the injured party is just like,” What the f*ck was that about?” And they’re like, you know, “All right, you got us on that one. Haha.” And they go back to being friends and having lunch and stuff, and palling around because that’s the how that relationship works organically, you know, people have to work together and you have to sell them your product they have to buy your the thing you’re selling and you can’t have too much animosity, but end result is you know, some damage to a lot of people or projects or whatever and it was really weird. It was such a from the get-go, “If he’s not there. We’ll sue.” Like that’s your answer? “Like, he’s in production. He’s, we’ve told you this. We’ve asked you repeatedly. He said ‘I will do it. I’m happy to do it. I just can’t start this thing until I know you have just let me know and we’ll delay it and we’ll we’ll start in, you know, March or April. It’s not that big a deal.’” They, and they and that that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They were they were so sh*tty to me in in numerous ways throughout the whole movie. It was it was a terrible awful experience and I’m sorry to bore people with the story yet again, but you asked, Mark!
Oh, I did ask. Did you ever run into any of those people since? Any of the producers or? Had any contact?
Oh, I mean, I don’t live in LA. So I’m not gonna that’s true and they’re not gonna hire me. You know, why would Karen after what I said? I mean I cost myself $150,000 by saying what I said on Conan…
How so?
I would have gotten a bonus, but I… whatever the legal legalese is in the contract. I denigrated the film or didn’t promote it.
You told people not to see it.
Yeah, I mean it’s… anyway, yeah.
I want to talk to your podcast because for the longest time you’re not a podcast listener commonly. It’s like, everyone has a podcast You resisted for so long. Why did you finally say yes to it? Because you really don’t need to be doing it.
Well, I see the value, clearly, of doing it and if I can reach a bigger audience and those folks come down to see me do stand-up, you know, when I go out on tour, then it’s kind of worth it. And I here’s the the the mitigating factor in all of this is I enjoy it I like doing it. It’s
Oh, I mean it’s clear and stuff. I just think it’s hilarious that you pitch them, just, you know, “I want to talk to my friends,” and and they’re like “You need a hook!”
Yep. That’s what they said. And that’s after like years of them going “You got to do a podcast, man. Do a podcast You should do a podcast. It’ll you know, it’ll get your name out there. Whatever podcast. That’s what the kids are doing.” And I was like, and I didn’t not do it for any, you know, particular negative reason. I was just, like, “I’d rather spend my time doing something else. I don’t need to do a podcast, it’s it’s alright.” And then when I finally did say “Yeah, I’ll do one,” then it was just this stupid fight about “You gotta have a hook. You gotta have a hook.” Well, the hook is I’m hanging… talking to… we’re having a good conversation, you know?
And then you gave them the five senses. “It’s gonna be about, I’ll talk about the five senses,” and then you, they, they were happy about that. And then you proceeded not to talk about the senses almost at all during the interviews.
Well, because we didn’t get to it… it would have been a… That’s not what I wanted to do and if I’m sitting there with…
I get that.
Yeah.
I just think that’s funny that they’re like you need the hook and then it’s in the title.
I told them. I tried to not have that.
You have amazing amazing guests. It’s so good. And I’m looking right now it’s around 46 city tour that goes through December at DavidCross.com and then Summer Stage on August the 8th, that’s you and your super pals.
Yeah.
Have you played there before?
No. No, it’s that’ll be pretty fun. It’s 5,500 seats or something like that big amphitheater outside, in Central Park.
Yeah, it’s Bob, and Sarah, Fred…
Sarah Silverman, Fred Armisen. A bunch of people. There are people that aren’t listed that’ll be there that are really good, too.
That’s amazing. I am so grateful that you agreed to do this. This is my last question and I don’t want it to be a downer. It’s just inspiring that you had it so hard growing up. You know, you grew up really poor and your mother struggling, three siblings, your dad wasn’t in the picture Is he when you got famous? Did he ever come to you for money? I’ve heard of certain people that once they got famous, their parent who ditched them, they’d come and you know, like I know that Jon Stewart had some issues with his dad who left and stuff. Did you ever have any of that?
It it was so far removed. I didn’t. The answer is no, but I was… The last time I talked to him, you know, I was a teenager and I didn’t really become successful outside of, like, a kind of culty way until I was, you know, mid to late 30s, so… so much time had passed, you know and You know by the time I was, you know making regular appearances on TV and getting bigger parts in movies and things like that and certainly by Arrested Development, I mean there was so much. I think it would damage his pride.
Can’t believe he’s on the Upper East Side or he might be on the Upper East Side, and you’re just so close to him. But so far.
Yes. Yeah, it’s weird.
It’s inspiring. I mean, you, when you move to Boston and stuff you didn’t even have a day job. I mean you really made it happen really quick. I mean, you were living poor in an apartment with cockroaches you dropped out of Emerson. You must have been 19. But just the fact you haven’t had to have a day job since you whatever 19 or so. Making it happen. Just an inspiring story.
I had plenty of day jobs. I mean I I would not have the day job once I started making enough money in doing stand-up, but you know, I worked at a sort of for in the warehouse of a place called Goods, which was like a kitschy store on Newbury Street, I’ve worked for a Travel agency, a big kind of travel agency chain, and I would go to the warehouse in Worcester and get load up a truck with materials and then distribute them around Boston and I worked for a mailroom in a law firm, for Palmer and Dodge, and then I worked as a bike messenger for this completely shady sketchy thing out of Southie. This family. It was all under the table stuff, and you know, I had these little things here and there but I was able to… I would quit them because I was like, “Oh I’ve got… I’m starting to get a hun, you know, hundred dollars hundred and Dollars every third night doing stand-up.” I mean, I didn’t have anything I just chose not to have a day job, but it’s not like I…
No, it’s amazing, just the whole arc. I want to get you Werner Herzog. You tape in LA too, right? You do your podcast in LA and New York.
Yes
It’s so damn good. Whoever you’ve had on and stuff with Bob and Janeane, it’s just… I don’t know it’s… I could… that’s my nightmare is not having any preparation and sitting down with somebody, and you’re just so good at it I mean just show up and it’s, like, you and Jo Firestone, like just making stuff up for… and I’m like, “Is anything real in this?”
Nothing was real.
It was just so beautiful. It was a beautiful, wonderful thing. Thank you for doing this and thank you for being nice to me when I was 20 years old and whenever I’ve seen you, you know, Janeane wrote in the Mr Show book she wrote a forward mentioning that when boys, I guess they’d probably be college high school would come up to you and Bob and literally be crying because they were so excited to meet you. Did that really happen?
I don’t know about literally crying but there were certainly there was a healthy amount of awkwardness, sure.
[Laughs] I was one of them. I was one of them. David, thank you so much for doing this. I’m grateful. I wish you the best with everything and your tour.
My pleasure, and I’m glad you had a positive experience with me back in those days.
Of course! No, you bought me a beer. I was 20 years old. Broke the law. Thank you for everything. It was great talking to you Thanks for putting it up with the 22 minutes of tech stuff. I owe you.
That’s all right, man. All right. Thank you Mark. I’ll see you later.
Thank you so much. Take care.
You too