"RE-RELEASE: John Mulaney"

As John Mulaney always says: “sugar goes into this body.” This week’s guest gets deep about his former tag crew, hypnotism, and proper swaddle technique. Plus Sean pitches a new compost idea. This episode was originally released on 5/16/2022.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sean Hayes?

  This episode of Smartless is sponsored by Google Book. So the other day, I wanted to make invitations for my dog Ricky's birthday party. And I've got three things open on my laptop. An adorable photo of Ricky, a picture of a birthday cake, and the RSVP details. Thing is, as much as I look like one, I'm not a canine birthday party invitation designer. That's where Google Book comes in. It's a whole new kind of laptop with a feature called Magic Pointer. I just click the photos and different elements on my screen and boom. Magic Pointer designs a customized birthday party invitation for Ricky. Click anything on your screen to create whatever you want. Visit googlebook.com. Available to 18-plus users.

• 0:44Sean Hayes?

  Compatibility and availability vary.

• 0:49Sean Hayes?

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• 1:27Sean Hayes?

  The place you call home is important to you. So it's important to Allstate. Because home is where you make all your memories. Things like inviting your friends over for game night and discovering that one of them takes charades way, way too seriously. It's these memories that make a house feel like home. If it's important to you, it's important to Allstate. Switch to Allstate and you could save hundreds on home insurance today. Not available in every state. Potential savings vary. Subject to terms and qualifications. Allstate North American Insurance Company and Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois.

• 2:03Sean Hayes?

  Fall means cozy meals, game days, and an excuse to bring home something sweet. Whole Foods Market keeps the focus on flavor with no artificial sweeteners like sucralose, artificial colors like red dye number 40, or high-fructose corn syrup store-wide. For game day, grab made-in-house wings, frozen pizzas, and 365 brand chips and dips. Finish with limited-time pumpkin blondies, apple brown butter cookies, or chocolate bourbon pecan pie. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market.

• 2:45Will Arnett?

  Well, the fans are filing in here at Smartless Arena, and we're ready for a great game. I think that all the teams today are ready to go, and there's a lot on the line here. So let's see how they do over here on an all-new Smartless.

• 3:17Will Arnett?

  Listen, I just want to say this, Jay. I haven't, because I haven't until now. I think it's so brave

• 3:24Jason Bateman?

  Uh-oh.

• 3:24Will Arnett?

  for you to, with your eyewear, to go Sally, Jesse, Raphael. Because I love the look. I, for me, I love it.

• 3:31Jason Bateman?

  Well, Sally, Jesse would be a red. Yeah, this is a black.

• 3:34Sean Hayes?

  But those do look like the same shape.

• 3:36Will Arnett?

  The same shape. Yeah, they are the same shape.

• 3:38Jason Bateman?

  Wait, am I usually wearing a different pair of glasses?

• 3:41Will Arnett?

  I don't know, but for some reason, for some reason today...

• 3:45Sean Hayes?

  No, those look a little more...

• 3:46Will Arnett?

  They're casting you in a different light. They're casting you in a different role.

• 3:50Jason Bateman?

  Well, maybe it's because I'm suffering deeply from COVID.

• 3:53Sean Hayes?

  No.

• 3:54Jason Bateman?

  Maybe that's what you're seeing, Will.

• 3:55Sean Hayes?

  You don't have it.

• 3:55Jason Bateman?

  Why don't you have a little bit more sympathy for me because I'm lousy with COVID?

• 3:59Sean Hayes?

  Do you really have it?

• 4:00Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, but I didn't cancel today. I'm gonna fight through, and I'm going to do a great session.

• 4:08Sean Hayes?

  Wait, do you feel like shit?

• 4:10Jason Bateman?

  No, I'm on day six. So I'm still testing positive, but the symptoms are all but gone. I don't know if you can... I still sound a little kind of 1993 Sunday morning. You know, a little backed up, a little schnitzy.

• 4:24Will Arnett?

  Yeah. So you've had to tough it out there at your house.

• 4:29Jason Bateman?

  It's not that tough.

• 4:30Will Arnett?

  Ernest Borgnine's old house.

• 4:32Jason Bateman?

  Old goose shack.

• 4:35Jason Bateman?

  I'm feeling.

• 4:37Will Arnett?

  Goose shack? The goose shack.

• 4:40Jason Bateman?

  The goose.

• 4:40Sean Hayes?

  Oh, the goose. Oh, that's right.

• 4:41Jason Bateman?

  Chronic masturbator, apparently.

• 4:44Will Arnett?

  Okay, can I tell you, you want to hear a funny?

• 4:45Jason Bateman?

  Sorry, let me just close the COVID loop for one second.

• 4:48Will Arnett?

  Okay, yeah, go ahead.

• 4:49Jason Bateman?

  And let me say thank you to all the geniuses that developed this vaccine. Because I could tell that this is, I've had a pretty minor thing, you know, but were it not for the vaccine, I could tell this would not just be a cold. This would be, there's a little engine in this thing that the vaccine neutralizes pretty well. So thank you to the smart folks in the world, the scientists and whatnot.

• 5:15Will Arnett?

  So.

• 5:16Jason Bateman?

  You're welcome.

• 5:16Will Arnett?

  Well, yeah, from, Sean and I, from the bottom of both of our hearts, you're welcome. And.

• 5:22Jason Bateman?

  Dark, cold hearts.

• 5:24Will Arnett?

  So.

• 5:24Sean Hayes?

  What were you gonna say, Will?

• 5:25Will Arnett?

  So there's a, in this, where I'm, where I'm, I currently am, and I'm, let's just keep it anonymous because I don't want to, but there's a, there's a certain chain department store nearby here. One of the people on our crew, he tells me that there is a, on a certain app on his phone that's used for male hookups.

• 5:43Jason Bateman?

  Uh oh.

• 5:44Will Arnett?

  That the, that the bathroom and changing room at this place has glory holes.

• 5:49Sean Hayes?

  What's the address?

• 5:51Sean Hayes?

  What's the address?

• 5:52Jason Bateman?

  Wait, was there an S on the end of hole?

• 5:57Will Arnett?

  So.

• 5:58Jason Bateman?

  I want to, can we double back to the multiple holes? Because I got questions, but go ahead.

• 6:02Will Arnett?

  For sure. And so as we're working on the show, I have worked it into virtually every aspect of hosting this thing. People talking about their Lego and their build, and this thing has a hole, and I go, if somebody did a cruise ship, I said, you know, the only cruising I do is in the men's department over at blah, blah, blah. And the contestants have no idea what I'm talking about. And all the crew are dying because everybody now knows about this.

• 6:26Sean Hayes?

  Wait, who told you this?

• 6:27Will Arnett?

  A guy on our, a guy that I work with, who's on one of these apps for hooking up with other dudes. And he goes, guess what? You'll never believe, like, less than a mile from here is a full hookup thing, glory, plural, holes.

• 6:42Sean Hayes?

  Right.

• 6:43Will Arnett?

  At this place. And I said, why would it just be hookup? Why is it glory holes? Like, is that a real thing? And he said, yes.

• 6:49Sean Hayes?

  That's like leftover from the eighties. I didn't know that existed anymore.

• 6:52Jason Bateman?

  So first of all, the, the, the, the general concept of the glory hole is you can go ahead and you can put, put, put, put yourself in there and see what you get, kind of thing? Or is it, is it for those?

• 7:03Will Arnett?

  First of all, it depends on what side of it you're on.

• 7:06Sean Hayes?

  That's right. Well, I love that you guys are, you can ask me.

• 7:10Will Arnett?

  Oh yeah, Sean, have you ever been to a glory hole?

• 7:12Sean Hayes?

  No, uh-uh.

• 7:13Jason Bateman?

  But, but is the concept that you're too ashamed to have a face-to-face hookup and that you just want to put it in the mystery box?

• 7:20Sean Hayes?

  To be honest, I don't understand because the mystery box, you don't know what's on the other side. You don't know the age, the STD level of that person.

• 7:28Jason Bateman?

  Then that was my next question. If you have multiple holes, and so I'm imagining that they vary in girth. Um, and so will that then tell you, A, where you sit in the, in the, the whole scale of things? But also what, what, what you're, what you're hoping is on the other side?

• 7:46Sean Hayes?

  I don't, but see, I don't know if it's ever, ever revealed.

• 7:49Will Arnett?

  I don't think it's ever revealed. It never gets revealed.

• 7:51Sean Hayes?

  Are we, are we crafting a new reality show? That like, there's a reveal on the other side of somebody?

• 7:57Jason Bateman?

  Will, aren't you just kind of, were you, can, why don't you?

• 8:00Will Arnett?

  Oh, I want to go over there so bad. Yeah.

• 8:01Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, go over there with your iPhone and just photograph what these holes look like and maybe, what sort of, what sort of language there is on the wall?

• 8:09Sean Hayes?

  We haven't heard from Will in two hours.

• 8:10Will Arnett?

  My, and the other thing is, I want to tell you like, that we drive by every morning, it's like 7:00 AM, we drive every, it's just like, there's like a line and it's like, the mayor, the local pastor, like all these people.

• 8:20Sean Hayes?

  They're all coming out of the shop?

• 8:21Will Arnett?

  Right. And they're all in there. And then the manager of the place is like, man, I mean, we got a line backed up here every day, but we do not move a lot of product this time.

• 8:31Jason Bateman?

  But everybody, it just seems to, everybody's all filled up before they come in here. They empty, and they leave, they're empty.

• 8:37Will Arnett?

  Or then they go, then they go in the dressing room and I guess nothing fits. We got the wrong product. None of our product is fitting anybody.

• 8:47Sean Hayes?

  That's hysterical. We haven't sold a shirt.

• 8:49Will Arnett?

  Can you imagine my delight when he told me this?

• 8:52Sean Hayes?

  Yes.

• 8:53Will Arnett?

  When he told me that this was going on?

• 8:54Sean Hayes?

  Does he, by the way, does he frequent this place?

• 8:57Will Arnett?

  No, he hasn't gone. He hasn't gone, but he, that's what he says. That's what he said.

• 9:00Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. All right. Well, you go, you bring us back a video, would you?

• 9:03Will Arnett?

  I will. I'll get, I'll keep you guys posted. Sorry. Anyway.

• 9:06Sean Hayes?

  And then send it to me as well. All right. So this is a perfect segue.

• 9:09Will Arnett?

  Okay.

• 9:10Sean Hayes?

  Into our guest.

• 9:11Will Arnett?

  Okay. Wow.

• 9:12Sean Hayes?

  I can best describe our guest today as that guy from that thing. But truly, he's in everything. You may know him from SNL, which doesn't narrow it down much. Although he's credited for co-creating Bill Hader's iconic character of Stefan. He's got not one, but three Netflix comedy specials. He stars as a chipmunk in Chippendale Rescue Rangers on Disney Plus. Boy, does he make me laugh. It's Mr. John Mulaney.

• 9:36Jason Bateman?

  John Mulaney has.

• 9:38Sean Hayes?

  Look at him.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 9:41Jason Bateman?

  John, what do you have to say about the whole glory hole thing before we wrap that up?

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Is it drywall?

• 9:48Will Arnett?

  Great question.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Because I always thought it was the wall of a bathroom stall, which would be metal.

• 9:54Jason Bateman?

  Metal. Right. Yeah. No, that's a separator. That's for wide stance folks.

• 9:58Sean Hayes?

  It would have to be, it'd have to be drywall. Yeah. Or plywood.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Or plywood. Oh, that's scarier.

• 10:05Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 10:06Will Arnett?

  I've got to go check it out. I mean, obviously I'm, I'm just obsessed with knowing the answer to all of this.

• 10:11Sean Hayes?

  Sure.

• 10:12Jason Bateman?

  I just want to know what's written around it, you know, like usually somebody's really kind of, really running their mouth there when they write shit on a, on a, on a, on a, on a separator, right? Between a stall.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  On a separator, but you think maybe there'd be more grace and dignity to the glory hole where it's like, there's no need to write crude things.

• 10:28Jason Bateman?

  Some sort of encouraging line, you know?

• 10:30Sean Hayes?

  The act itself is already.

• 10:32Will Arnett?

  Because it's about love.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. And this is, it's all love and we're going to move through it with love.

• 10:35Jason Bateman?

  Maybe it's a Washington Post thing. Your truth dies in the darkness. Go ahead and enter, something like that.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. You don't need all the arrows and the innuendo and the, and the little limericks, which are in poor taste.

• 10:46Will Arnett?

  Yeah, let's not be childish. We all know why we're here.

• 10:48Sean Hayes?

  It's a helmet on a helmet.

• 10:50Jason Bateman?

  Do you think that there's like some ink, ink hair, you know, like some drawing of some hair and stuff like that? Or is it just like a big smiley face?

• 10:57Will Arnett?

  I'm sorry, what?

• 10:58Sean Hayes?

  Okay.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  I could see if they have those screens you sometimes see in elevators that give you like the news, you know, they give you like limited financial and entertainment news.

• 11:09Jason Bateman?

  In case you've got stamina.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you're standing there for a while, you want to know.

• 11:12Will Arnett?

  What if it says something in, like something inspiring, like, you know, when the football players run through it, like Notre Dame, and there's something over the door, if there's just something real inspiring over it.

• 11:21Jason Bateman?

  What would get you charged up, Will? What would you want to slap?

• 11:24Sean Hayes?

  Like, go, go, go?

• 11:24Will Arnett?

  You know, I don't know, like, you know, go forth.

• 11:28Jason Bateman?

  Go get them?

• 11:29Will Arnett?

  Go get them.

• 11:32Jason Bateman?

  Go get them.

• 11:33Will Arnett?

  You know, go bravely into the void or something, you know what I mean?

• 11:37Jason Bateman?

  Let me tell you something, this is not the way we started our session with David Remnick, okay? I can assure you that.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Mr. Mulaney, it is how you started with Vivek Murthy, I believe. It's almost the exact same banter, which is a letdown. It's a major letdown.

• 11:51Will Arnett?

  But that was more about the dangers of a glory hole.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  I know, because he's got to be that guy.

• 11:56Will Arnett?

  He has to.

• 11:57Sean Hayes?

  Mr. Mulaney, thank you for being here today.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  I'm very, very flattered to be here. I've, I've listened to, I think, almost every episode of the show.

• 12:05Jason Bateman?

  No, don't buy it.

• 12:06Sean Hayes?

  Well, will you listen to your own?

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Um, absolutely, yeah.

• 12:09Sean Hayes?

  All right, good.

• 12:10Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 12:10Sean Hayes?

  Um, John Mulaney, I, I'm such a, and I, I think we all are such big fans, um, your last Saturday Night Live was so, they all, they're all great, but that last one was so fucking funny. Your monologue was genius. I was like, it was so funny.

• 12:26Jason Bateman?

  How do you find such comfort, such comfort and such ease? Is it because you've been there so long? It is like home, right?

• 12:32Speaker 03

  It is a little bit like, yeah, it's like going back to, uh, school in a way, um, because you fall right back into the same, like, fall back into the same insecurities and securities.

• 12:45Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  And in terms of doing the monologue, it's so scary and it's so many people that it's laughable. I think I get relaxed because if something went wrong, it would go so wrong. And there'd be no way around, no one could talk me down and go, it's okay that you accidentally.

• 13:03Jason Bateman?

  And you can't blame anyone else because you're writing your own monologue, right?

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Yes. And it's you right into the, not right into the lens, but basically.

• 13:10Will Arnett?

  Basically into the lens. Malini, the first, so you first got hired at SNL as a writer?

• 13:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:15Will Arnett?

  Correct?

• 13:15Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, but, but Will, sorry to interrupt.

• 13:17Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, just interrupt, Sean. Go ahead and just, yeah.

• 13:20Will Arnett?

  So then.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  No, no, let me, let me say something. Let me say something. You're right. I was hired as a writer.

• 13:26Will Arnett?

  There you go. Okay. Got it, Sean. And then, and then you.

• 13:30Sean Hayes?

  So wait, listen, Sean, to Will's point where I wanted to interrupt.

• 13:36Jason Bateman?

  Wait, this gotta be a great question. Hold on, everybody. Get it, Sean.

• 13:39Sean Hayes?

  No, I was gonna say, you were, before SNL, you were discovered from the Conan, from Late Night with Conan, is that true? And how did that go down? Like, somebody, who saw you on that and what was that like?

• 13:49Speaker 03

  The talent department at SNL saw me on, um, Conan.

• 13:55Jason Bateman?

  Hang on, what's a talent department at SNL? What does that mean?

• 13:58Speaker 03

  It's the most, it's just a room of the most talented people in the world. We call them the talent.

• 14:04Speaker 03

  Let me see. But you know, also, they saw me on Conan O'Brien, but I was doing ASCAT monologues that same summer. And I, with, when Amy and Seth were doing ASCAT a lot.

• 14:14Sean Hayes?

  So Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers were doing ASCAT, which is an improv thing at Upright Citizens Brigade, so.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Which is at 20, which at that time was at 26th and 8th, under Christides.

• 14:23Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 14:24Speaker 03

  And they might have, you know, I haven't, I think they kind of floated my name there as well. That seems familiar.

• 14:32Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Because I knew some folks that were working there.

• 14:35Sean Hayes?

  And the desire was to be a writer or performer or both?

• 14:37Speaker 03

  No, I auditioned as a performer, but it's so, I don't know, there's so much, it's so fluid between the two.

• 14:44Will Arnett?

  So you're doing, so you're doing monologues at ASCAT. How did you know Amy and Seth to do that? Like, did you were on a improv team at UCB or anything?

• 14:53Speaker 03

  No, I was, I'd been an intern at UCB and I was taking, um, classes there. When I first moved to New York in 2004, I was taking classes there and I was an intern there, which meant I was taping garbage bags to the ceiling.

• 15:05Will Arnett?

  Sure.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  So that McDonald's water could leak down into the theater without splashing on the good folks.

• 15:10Will Arnett?

  Did you start, did you start at 26th and 8th at that theater?

• 15:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I started at 26th and 8th. I'd been to the old, the first theater a couple times in college. And this was the second less fire hazard of the theaters. And I, yeah, so I was an intern, I was a janitor there. On Saturday nights for, let's see, Respecto? Were they that night?

• 15:33Will Arnett?

  Respecto Montalban.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Respecto Montalban.

• 15:36Jason Bateman?

  What was that?

• 15:37Speaker 03

  For a while, the NYU Hammer Cats had a slot there.

• 15:41Will Arnett?

  These are all improv teams.

• 15:42Jason Bateman?

  Okay, got it.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  And I would watch them as I taped the garbage bags to the ceiling. Because water was actively leaking.

• 15:48Will Arnett?

  Wait, Mulaney, remind our audience who is in Respecto.

• 15:51Speaker 03

  Uh, let's see, Rob Hubel, Owen Burke.

• 15:54Jason Bateman?

  Great.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, and the rest. And all of them were in it.

• 16:01Jason Bateman?

  Will, Willie, didn't you, Will? I did a monologue, didn't I, at Ask Cat?

• 16:06Will Arnett?

  You sure did, a couple of times.

• 16:08Jason Bateman?

  I, remind me how that, I just remember that.

• 16:10Will Arnett?

  You had the sniffles that night, I remember.

• 16:12Jason Bateman?

  Did I really?

• 16:13Will Arnett?

  You had the Saturday night sniffles, I think. Yeah, it was Sunday.

• 16:16Jason Bateman?

  Was I still enjoying?

• 16:17Will Arnett?

  I don't know.

• 16:18Jason Bateman?

  But I remember it being very nerve wracking.

• 16:20Will Arnett?

  Yeah, you did it a couple of times at Twenty Six and Eight.

• 16:24Jason Bateman?

  Now, how did that go, remind me? I guess I was in a blackout or other things.

• 16:27Will Arnett?

  It's a Harold, we'll have Mulaney remind you how it goes.

• 16:29Jason Bateman?

  John?

• 16:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:30Jason Bateman?

  So, you stand there and then you, do you get, don't you get sent like one word from the audience? And then you gotta do a whole, literally, just do a, improvise a whole monologue about that one word? Licorice?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  You're sent it in that they say it. You ask, yes, but you get, people yell out multiple words. And I would say, you pick the one closest to something you might have anything to say about.

• 16:53Jason Bateman?

  And then you just freestyle a story, but it has to last like five or 10 minutes, right?

• 16:57Speaker 03

  I think it's.

• 16:57Will Arnett?

  Five minutes, and it's supposed to be true.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:00Jason Bateman?

  Oh, really?

• 17:01Will Arnett?

  It's supposed to be a true story, yeah, why, did you make your shit up?

• 17:03Jason Bateman?

  I don't, I don't remember, I honestly don't. How long ago was that? Wasn't that like 20 years ago?

• 17:07Will Arnett?

  That was like 2003.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  I mean, would it be fair to say, Will, that like, it could be a full story with an arc? But almost, if you just gave details of.

• 17:16Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Anything, even, even you just walked us through a procedure.

• 17:20Will Arnett?

  Yeah, yeah, I would never, you would, once you do it more and more, because really what you're there to do is you're in service of the improvisers who are standing on the stage behind you. And you're trying to give them as many ideas to inspire them to create sketches, improvise sketches based on that, so.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Do you want to know my story?

• 17:36Will Arnett?

  So, so, not really, not really, Sean, what is with you today? Fucking, I know you're the star of Goodnight Oscar, but here, there are other people, okay? So maybe in Chicago, with your, armed with your fucking stellar reviews, you can just boss your way through shit. But here, there are other people. Anyway, John, so sorry.

• 17:57Will Arnett?

  But that was the thing, right, John? You're just trying to give them ideas.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're just trying to give like texture and details. I mean, they're not gonna, they're not gonna perform your story front to back.

• 18:08Jason Bateman?

  Right, and your story doesn't, uh, what's, it's a, yeah, front to back, that is the way to do it, right?

• 18:12Will Arnett?

  Sean, do you have something you want to say?

• 18:13Sean Hayes?

  My story's pretty good for my ass cat.

• 18:16Jason Bateman?

  There we go.

• 18:17Sean Hayes?

  It's really short. So, so Armani, the Armani, Giorgio Armani invited me, this is so long ago.

• 18:24Jason Bateman?

  We don't need the Armani, okay?

• 18:27Sean Hayes?

  The Armani.

• 18:28Will Arnett?

  N. Armani.

• 18:30Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Will Arnett?

  Somebody in extended family.

• 18:34Jason Bateman?

  Like the puppy.

• 18:35Sean Hayes?

  Do you see how funny this is? So, we go to, he invited me to go to some fashion show in Milan. So I go there.

• 18:42Jason Bateman?

  Who, who did?

• 18:43Sean Hayes?

  Giorgio Armani.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  At the real Giorgio Armani.

• 18:49Will Arnett?

  At the first, at the original.

• 18:50Speaker 03

  At the original.

• 18:51Jason Bateman?

  Not to be confused with George Armani, who lives in the North Valley here.

• 18:57Sean Hayes?

  So I go there, I go there, I watch the thing, and then he invites, there's this party at his house afterward. And so I get one of the guys that works there.

• 19:03Will Arnett?

  Wait, how is this related to Ass Cat?

• 19:06Sean Hayes?

  This is the, this is the story I told for Ass Cat.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  Well, no, it was a gathering, Ass Cat's a gathering of people, and it sounds like this is too.

• 19:11Jason Bateman?

  Uh huh, sure.

• 19:12Will Arnett?

  Wait, so you told the story of going to Armani's house?

• 19:14Sean Hayes?

  Yes, and then I went to the house, and I grabbed a guy who worked at the party, and I said, "I wanna see the rest of his house." He's like, "He really doesn't allow that." I'm like, "Please, please, please." So I go up to his, uh, he gets in this elevator, I go up to his, the bedroom floor, right? And I go into his closet, 'cause I wanted to see what clothes he wore. And in his closet is all in a line, like 50 navy shirts and 50 pairs of jeans below it. All the exact same lined up.

• 19:40Jason Bateman?

  Exact same, and it's all Tommy Hilfiger?

• 19:42Sean Hayes?

  And it's all Tommy Hilfiger.

• 19:45Will Arnett?

  Were you, were you caught?

• 19:47Sean Hayes?

  It's all from the gap. I wasn't, I got, I high-tailed it out there, 'cause I thought I was gonna get shot or something.

• 19:52Will Arnett?

  Did you take, you, did you steal anything? Be real.

• 19:55Sean Hayes?

  No, no, no, I didn't steal anything.

• 19:57Jason Bateman?

  Great story.

• 20:03Sean Hayes?

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• 20:46Sean Hayes?

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• 21:11Sean Hayes?

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• 21:55Sean Hayes?

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• 22:25Will Arnett?

  Everyone loves a buffet, right? Choosing exactly what you want, yes. Just does something to you, you know? You grab a little bit of this, a little bit of that, maybe something you didn't even plan on grabbing. And suddenly your plate is full and you're feeling pretty good about your choices. Well, guess what? Investing with Schwab is kind of like a big, beautiful buffet. Yeah, lots of options and no one's judging what ends up on your plate. It's everything investors need, all in one place. You want a hearty scoop of self-directed investing? Knock yourself out. You want full-service wealth management? Delicious. Trading, retirement planning? Go ahead, pile it on. Maybe you keep things simple.

• 23:07Will Arnett?

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• 23:32Sean Hayes?

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• 24:12Sean Hayes?

  All right, back to the show. Anyway, listen, John, so you're from Chicago. I didn't know you're from Chicago and you went, how long did you live here and you grew up here?

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Zero to 18, yeah. I grew up in Lincoln Park.

• 24:23Sean Hayes?

  Wow, I didn't know that.

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, you're from Chicago.

• 24:26Sean Hayes?

  The suburbs, yeah.

• 24:27Will Arnett?

  Sean's in Chicago right now.

• 24:28Speaker 03

  I know, I can tell from his hat and the view and the fact that I know he's there.

• 24:34Jason Bateman?

  Is that, is that, is that, so I've always wondered what that, so listener, Sean has on a hat with the four stars and the blue stripe across the top and a blue stripe across the bottom. That's a Chicago flag or an Illinois flag?

• 24:48Speaker 03

  Chicago. Chicago.

• 24:49Jason Bateman?

  So the city of Chicago has its own flag? Is that the only city? LA doesn't have a city flag, does it?

• 24:55Speaker 03

  I'm sure it does.

• 24:55Will Arnett?

  Guaranteed it does, yeah.

• 24:56Jason Bateman?

  Huh?

• 24:57Speaker 03

  I'm sure it does.

• 24:59Jason Bateman?

  I'm doing a Google search, right?

• 25:00Will Arnett?

  New York City does. Wait, wait, wait, Sean, Melody, you'll be happy to know that when we were in Chicago doing our, our shows live, that Sean's generous friend came by and brought us Chicago hats.

• 25:13Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Will Arnett?

  Twenty different Chicago hats, Chicago, like literally twenty.

• 25:19Jason Bateman?

  Steve Horvath, yeah.

• 25:20Will Arnett?

  Steve Horvath, very kind of him. And I was like, how would we need to know? It was very, it was, it was very generous.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Sounds like it was a lot.

• 25:28Will Arnett?

  It was a lot.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  It sounds like it was too many hats.

• 25:31Will Arnett?

  Well.

• 25:31Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  The way you're describing it, it's not, I'm not getting just a generosity vibe. It's, it's a lot of hats.

• 25:37Will Arnett?

  Yeah, the amount was surprising.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  Loved it.

• 25:39Will Arnett?

  I will say this.

• 25:40Speaker 03

  And you probably had like carry-ons for the tour, you know, and you didn't want, you had to now, you had to now carry twenty, twenty hats in a laundry bag from the Four Seasons or something.

• 25:51Jason Bateman?

  Do you have merch at your shows, John?

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Yes, thank you for mentioning that.

• 25:54Jason Bateman?

  That's short for merchandise, sorry, John.

• 25:56Will Arnett?

  What is your merchandise, John?

• 25:58Speaker 03

  I get to plug the merch? I have a T-shirt that says, "I saw him just after he got out of rehab." That would be the best seller right now.

• 26:05Will Arnett?

  No way.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  Yes, it says that and has the tour.

• 26:07Will Arnett?

  So John, so Melody, you grew up, you grew up in Chicago. When did you start, did you start doing stand-up or did you start doing sketch? What, what was your trajectory?

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Uh, like outside of a high school environment, I started doing, I did stand-up at a couple, not even open mics, just like weird variety nights at places like The Note in, near Wicker Park.

• 26:30Will Arnett?

  But that's ballsy, though. To, to just start to do stand-up, was it, were you scared?

• 26:34Speaker 03

  I, I had weirdly high self-esteem when it came to that.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Not really about any other part of life, but I was like, yeah, no, I'm, I'm a headliner. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, it's gonna be great, people are gonna be talking about this. Um, and then I did improv in college. I auditioned for the improv group my fourth day of college and the director was a young man named Nick Kroll.

• 26:59Will Arnett?

  No.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  He cast me, yeah, he was a senior, I was a freshman and he cast me in the improv group. Very much changed my life.

• 27:05Jason Bateman?

  That's amazing.

• 27:06Will Arnett?

  Wait, where was this? What college was this?

• 27:08Speaker 03

  This was Georgetown University in Washington DC.

• 27:10Jason Bateman?

  Right, where you studied theology as well?

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, English and theology.

• 27:14Jason Bateman?

  Why?

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought-

• 27:16Jason Bateman?

  Want to be a priest?

• 27:17Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I mainly studied Jewish theology. Uh, they're just, there was a very good, um, there were a couple of very good Jewish studies professors at Georgetown and I just found it much more interesting, theology, because it's a lot more like, what the hell do we know? You know?

• 27:33Will Arnett?

  Yeah, what do we know from anything?

• 27:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, Catholics was a lot more like, this is the, you know, do this and you'll, you'll spend this many days in fire, but then you can get out if someone prays for you. There were too many rules, too much structure.

• 27:44Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Judaism was a lot of like, who the, who the hell are you to ask? You know, like, is there a God? Like, who the hell are you?

• 27:49Jason Bateman?

  Sounds like shorter chapters, which is probably smart, yeah.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Excuse me? Who the hell are you to ask that? Why is there water?

• 27:57Jason Bateman?

  Get out of here.

• 27:58Speaker 03

  Get out of here, mind your business.

• 27:59Jason Bateman?

  Now, were you, were you a Weisenheimer in, in, in school when you were a little kid? And that's where you thought maybe there might be a, a, a way to make a living here?

• 28:06Speaker 03

  I remember in third grade, a teacher gave me an article like Xerox from Esquire. Like, it wasn't for kids, it was a, it was like, it was an article and it was, it was about this guy, Henry Beard, who wrote, um, for the Harvard Lampoon, the National Lampoon, and the name of the article was "The Original Smartass White Guy." And she slipped it to me, Ms. Koal, and she said, "I, you'd be into this guy and this type of thing."

• 28:32Will Arnett?

  That's cool.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  And, yeah, it was cool, but I don't recall being like a troublemaker, but-

• 28:39Jason Bateman?

  But you knew that you had skills, you were making kids laugh, that, that felt good, yeah, and you wanted more.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  And I was kind of a writer performer in that I would tell, uh, uh, more poorly behaved children what might be a funny thing to do.

• 28:52Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  What if someone threw that out the window right now?

• 28:55Jason Bateman?

  And they would take the bait and you would watch?

• 28:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, that'd be pretty, it'd be pretty crazy if someone just threw their potato battery out the window right now, you know?

• 29:02Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Can you imagine how that'd be crazy? I know you're pretty unstable.

• 29:06Will Arnett?

  God, you would have been.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  You've got a lot going on at home. Maybe, maybe you'd be like a king for a day if you did that, you know?

• 29:11Will Arnett?

  You'd be great in a cult. Do you know that? You'd be great if you worked in a cult.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  I think I'd be pretty susceptible. I, I, I don't have a lot of cult confidence. I, I don't know how, I don't know if I'd be the leader. I think I'd be a member and I, and it'd take me a while. It'd take me a while to see the light.

• 29:27Jason Bateman?

  Are you saying there wasn't a lot of bad behavior when you were a little kid? Like, cause I'm just going through, as soon as you said battery, I, I had a just horrible memory of me and my friends like throwing batteries at like stuff like, um, and there's more detail to that.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  I remember, um, I remember we got caught tagging up a garage. Uh, yeah, we were always, we were really.

• 29:48Will Arnett?

  You were in a tag crew?

• 29:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, and my tag.

• 29:53Jason Bateman?

  Was hat sideways? Tell me the hat was sideways. Just a little askew.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  We wrote, we wrote, "We are the fuckers."

• 30:02Jason Bateman?

  Sure. And did you spell fuckers all weird like?

• 30:06Speaker 03

  No, I spelled it normally.

• 30:07Jason Bateman?

  Like scary weird?

• 30:08Speaker 03

  To me, it was just the, the declaration. We are, we are the fuckers.

• 30:13Will Arnett?

  Of what? Of what?

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Of everything, man. Of anything, especially a garage door.

• 30:20Will Arnett?

  You guys were hardcore.

• 30:21Jason Bateman?

  So you could have gotten trouble if you, if you'd gotten caught, you could have gotten trouble for, uh, for, for a few dozen things when you were a kid or, or not?

• 30:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, and we, I had a real, I didn't have a pyromania phase, but my good friend did. And I would supervise, I kind of supervised that a little.

• 30:38Jason Bateman?

  You weren't mean to, to cats or anything, were you?

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Not at all, no. Um, not at all. Love, uh, was allergic to cats, so we were, had kind of agree to disagree relationship, cats and I, but, um.

• 30:48Jason Bateman?

  Would you put like food, food coloring and, and, and beverages and things like that, John?

• 30:53Speaker 03

  No, but we would do a lot of like, what could we put a bottle rocket in?

• 30:56Will Arnett?

  What do you think, he was in a church group?

• 30:58Jason Bateman?

  He's studying theology and being a real hellcat, so I'm trying to.

• 31:02Will Arnett?

  You're like the foreman of trouble, like you just got everybody else creating trouble for you.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  The George Foreman of trouble?

• 31:09Will Arnett?

  Yeah, you're like the German, Foreman's grill of trouble.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was, I was, I was healthy, lean.

• 31:16Will Arnett?

  Wait, so, um, wait, so, so John, so you go to, you go to, uh,

• 31:22Jason Bateman?

  Georgetown.

• 31:23Will Arnett?

  Georgetown, and, uh, you're the guy running the, the improv team, group, whatever.

• 31:30Jason Bateman?

  Well, now, hold on a second. I gotta stop you there. Uh, I see John's got a Zevia beverage in his hand. Now, that is-

• 31:36Sean Hayes?

  What's that?

• 31:37Speaker 03

  It is a stevia-based soda, and I-

• 31:40Jason Bateman?

  Is it good?

• 31:41Speaker 03

  I can safely recommend every single flavor of Zevia.

• 31:44Jason Bateman?

  Hang on, John, you're not getting any freebies out of this. You're a guest.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  I don't need freebies. My recurring Amazon orders- I have two, uh, recurring Amazon orders that I, one I don't know how to cancel and one I can find.

• 31:57Jason Bateman?

  See, that's why I've never signed up for the, for the automatic.

• 32:00Will Arnett?

  What is the one you don't know how to cancel?

• 32:01Speaker 03

  It's so much cream soda, but I'm fine with it, but it's backing up. There's, there's baby formula, diapers, and so much cream soda Zevia, and they're tall boys, too, because I just-

• 32:12Jason Bateman?

  Oh, I do like, yeah, the tall ones are nice.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  They can make tall ones, yeah.

• 32:16Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Now, does that, that gets us into, uh, to, you seem like a guy who watches what they put in their body. Um, we're gonna double back to Georgetown.

• 32:24Will Arnett?

  I'm sorry, are we back to the glory holes? Oh, no.

• 32:26Jason Bateman?

  No.

• 32:28Sean Hayes?

  Went all the way back.

• 32:29Jason Bateman?

  Um, so, there's, is there no sugar goes into that body, John?

• 32:33Speaker 03

  No, sugar goes into this body.

• 32:34Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Um, I am, I am recently, uh, sober, and so I'm allowing myself a lot of-

• 32:43Jason Bateman?

  Sugar.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  In, in sugar and indulgences.

• 32:45Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  I'm trying to cut back, but I haven't yet.

• 32:48Jason Bateman?

  Right.

• 32:48Speaker 03

  And I won't today, and I won't tomorrow.

• 32:50Jason Bateman?

  Watch out for the man with no vices. Let, go ahead and keep one or two. Yeah, sugar's just fine, work-

• 32:55Speaker 03

  I quit smoking cigarettes in November, too.

• 32:58Jason Bateman?

  Oh, buddy.

• 32:58Will Arnett?

  Stop showing off. Stop showing off.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  I went to a, I went to a hypnotist.

• 33:02Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  Uh, he was a UCLA, um, paranormal professor-

• 33:09Jason Bateman?

  Huh.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  -who now hypnotizes people in his garage in Santa Monica.

• 33:14Jason Bateman?

  Sounds safe. Do you see spaceships when he's done?

• 33:15Will Arnett?

  I mean, honestly, none of this seems problematic to me. Keep going.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Remember how I said I'm susceptible to cults? Well, I go to this guy's garage.

• 33:24Sean Hayes?

  I spent eight hours in the garage.

• 33:26Will Arnett?

  So you're telling me the guy with the crystal ball, he moved his operation into the garage? And now he's getting people off butts?

• 33:33Speaker 03

  Well, if he's so fake, how come he has some headshots thanking him for his work?

• 33:41Sean Hayes?

  Some.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, some head, some sun-faded headshots thanking him for getting them off cigarettes. Entertainers who I recognize vaguely.

• 33:51Sean Hayes?

  Wait, so did it, so, so did it work? I mean, are you craving cigarettes?

• 33:54Speaker 03

  No, I, it actually did work. I mean, I smoked from thirteen, age thirteen to thirty-nine, and stopped in November.

• 34:02Sean Hayes?

  Wow.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  After the second session.

• 34:03Sean Hayes?

  Whole turkey. No weaning whatsoever.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  First hypnotism session, you get to keep smoking for that week, which is a big reason I did it, was I love smoking.

• 34:12Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  So, second session, walked out, never had another. Third session, I actually don't remember. I, I really did, I really did go somewhere else.

• 34:23Sean Hayes?

  That's nice. That's great. So, John Mulaney, I want to talk to you about, Marty Short is a good friend of mine, good friend of ours.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  The greatest.

• 34:29Sean Hayes?

  And I loved your sitcom with, called Mulaney, with Marty.

• 34:34Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 34:35Sean Hayes?

  I did, I loved it. I watched every episode.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you very much.

• 34:37Will Arnett?

  Mulaney, I used to watch the, the, on the, on the tap over at Radford Studios. I would see you guys rehearsing all the time.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  It was so fun. It was one of the most fun experiences making the show.

• 34:49Sean Hayes?

  He speaks so highly of you, just so you know.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  I love him very much.

• 34:52Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, it's mutual.

• 34:53Jason Bateman?

  I want to see that, damn it. What, I, I apologize.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  Twenty fourteen, Fox.

• 34:59Sean Hayes?

  Until?

• 35:00Speaker 03

  From August to November of twenty fourteen.

• 35:05Jason Bateman?

  So it was a tight thirteen?

• 35:06Speaker 03

  I think, they did air all thirteen. Our final episode aired against the SNL fortieth, which I was working on. And we ended up losing to that, the ratings that night.

• 35:20Jason Bateman?

  That's like the, Will, didn't they air the very final episodes of Arrested Development against the Winter Olympics?

• 35:26Will Arnett?

  Opening of the Olympics.

• 35:27Jason Bateman?

  Opening ceremonies.

• 35:29Will Arnett?

  They burned all four in a row. They were just, and they didn't tell anybody. They were like, get these off our fucking.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  Salt Lake City.

• 35:35Jason Bateman?

  Was it?

• 35:36Will Arnett?

  2006.

• 35:36Sean Hayes?

  But Sean, was that sitcom?

• 35:38Jason Bateman?

  Sorry, Sean.

• 35:39Sean Hayes?

  No, that's okay. Was that something you always wanted to do? Were you passionate about it? Or?

• 35:44Speaker 03

  I was. I was. I was passionate about, I was and am passionate about multicam. I really like.

• 35:50Jason Bateman?

  You and me both.

• 35:51Will Arnett?

  So do we.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  Yep. And I, I mean, I grew up on them, but also I just find it, and maybe it's also the Saturday Night Live in me and the stand-up in me. I just like three to four cameras and yelling jokes to the back of the room.

• 36:06Sean Hayes?

  And an audience, a live audience.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  And a live audience, yeah.

• 36:09Jason Bateman?

  And the six-hour day.

• 36:11Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. I mean, I, as, as the EP and writer and everything, I didn't have that, but watching Elliot Gould and Marty Short and Nassim Padrad leave at three, I just thought, oof, that's, that's the life of King.

• 36:25Sean Hayes?

  Would you do another one?

• 36:26Speaker 03

  I would, yeah.

• 36:27Sean Hayes?

  Yeah? You should. You'd be great.

• 36:30Jason Bateman?

  We need to crack that. I'm calling you after this, after the session.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  It's, um.

• 36:34Jason Bateman?

  Who directed most of those episodes? Do you remember?

• 36:36Speaker 03

  I just, when they're good, they're, when they're good, they're so great. Andy Ackerman, wonderful man.

• 36:40Will Arnett?

  Oh, yes.

• 36:41Sean Hayes?

  Seinfeld, yeah.

• 36:42Will Arnett?

  Yeah, of course.

• 36:43Speaker 03

  Seinfeld, many other great things.

• 36:44Sean Hayes?

  And then let me ask you this, because I've always wanted to know, I've always wondered about like, A-plus stand-ups like yourself, who do all these specials and you tour and you're constantly writing. By the time we see your special on Netflix or wherever it is, how many times have you tried out that material? Or, and how many rewrites do you go through before we see it? Or are we seeing stuff that you trusted or know will work from the moment you wrote it?

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Oh, those seem like two questions.

• 37:11Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, it's a problem with Sean.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Okay, the first part is, the first part is, it depends on how much I toured before the special.

• 37:21Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  So, I did, so I did that sitcom, it was, um, production was shut down in October. I went on the road the next week. And then I taped a special that May called The Comeback Kid for Netflix. That was a pretty short tour. Uh, the last special I did, there was about a year of touring before it. This one will be like, this one will be close to a year, maybe over. I'm, I'm on the road steadily right now, so.

• 37:48Jason Bateman?

  How do you like that road stuff, that touring stuff, that staying in a hotel every night?

• 37:53Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 37:54Jason Bateman?

  Really?

• 37:55Speaker 03

  I like hotel living, um, I really like tour bus living.

• 38:01Jason Bateman?

  Do you take your own slippers with you when you go to all those hotels?

• 38:03Speaker 03

  I bring my own pillow, but I take their pillowcase. What does that mean?

• 38:07Sean Hayes?

  That's, that's. Jason doesn't like, doesn't, Jason won't walk on the floors of hotels.

• 38:10Jason Bateman?

  He will not walk on the floors of a hotel without, without a barrier, um, and then, um.

• 38:15Speaker 03

  Do you put the remote in a Ziploc bag before you use it?

• 38:18Jason Bateman?

  I put it in a pot of boiling water. And then, uh, and then if it still works, we're, we're, we're on it.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  We're golden.

• 38:25Jason Bateman?

  But if it doesn't work, then there's no TV. Um, so you take the pillowcase.

• 38:30Will Arnett?

  Jason basically lives like Howard Hughes. He has like at all times, don't, don't show him your fingernails. And he wears, he's got like 12 layers of Kleenex between himself and anything that he touches. It's disgusting.

• 38:39Jason Bateman?

  You're using the, uh, you're bringing your own pillow, but you're using their pillowcase because you wanna make.

• 38:45Will Arnett?

  Milleney, watch this.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Well, no, what happened, it's worse than that. I took one pillowcase from the first hotel on this tour. Where did it start? We started in, um, Portland, Maine, maybe? I, I took a pillowcase and it's, it's still on.

• 39:00Jason Bateman?

  Because you like the thread count on that one. You're like, oh, we're gonna keep this.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  I liked that it was long and my special foam pillow is longer than a regular pillow too. So it was cool. It was a nice fit.

• 39:10Sean Hayes?

  You sleep with the pillow between your knees?

• 39:13Speaker 03

  I got one of those at an As Seen on TV store at Foxwoods recently.

• 39:17Jason Bateman?

  Oh, is it like a body pillow?

• 39:19Speaker 03

  No, it's like a little, little, it looks like a yoga block, except it has a skate ramp in it. And you put it right between those knees. And it's at the, if you guys are at, anyone near the As Seen on TV store at the mall in Foxwoods, the casino. They have them there. And again, that's at the Foxwoods Casino.

• 39:40Will Arnett?

  Not too, Sean's a slow writer, so not too, not too fast.

• 39:44Jason Bateman?

  Is there really a store called As Seen on TV?

• 39:46Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. You've never been in one?

• 39:48Will Arnett?

  You've never seen that?

• 39:49Jason Bateman?

  Come on.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Oh, it's the greatest.

• 39:50Jason Bateman?

  Truly.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  It looks like a storage unit.

• 39:53Jason Bateman?

  Can I ask you what they sell in there?

• 39:54Speaker 03

  Ev, I mean, the one thing I was really intrigued by this time was something called Battery Daddy, which was, it looked like a,

• 40:01Jason Bateman?

  Tell me slow.

• 40:02Speaker 03

  Looked like a seedy tower, looked like a compact disc tower for batteries. It was a big, it was, it was almost like a pyramid where all your sizes of batteries had different levels they could clip into.

• 40:14Jason Bateman?

  Could you use that?

• 40:16Speaker 03

  Um, definitely can't find the double A's when I need them.

• 40:20Jason Bateman?

  Now, do you guys keep your batteries in the freezer, by the way? Or do I, am I just married to a crazy person?

• 40:24Speaker 03

  No, I don't think there's any science behind that.

• 40:26Will Arnett?

  What are you, a photographer? What's going on? I, I used to, I got one of those, I got one of those wedge pillows where you can slip your arm, because my arm was bothering me for a while. And I, I, I bought it from, I think like the back store, one of these things, Relax the Bag. And I, you actually put your, it looked like a mousetrap. And then I'd sleep on this thing. Anyway, it didn't end up working.

• 40:42Jason Bateman?

  Oh, what a catch. Do you have a CPAP when you go to sleep too?

• 40:45Will Arnett?

  Sean, do you, I don't. Sean, do you?

• 40:47Speaker 03

  My girlfriend, Olivia, has still, we still have the pregnancy pillow, that, that horseshoe shaped thing. And I slept in it the other day, and it is fantastic. It's like sleeping in a bumper bowling lane. I woke up, I woke up with something.

• 41:01Will Arnett?

  Sean, Sean sleeps, Sean sleeps like in that position, they tell you, again, when a plane's crashing, like with his, where he's grabbing his knees.

• 41:09Jason Bateman?

  Just in case Scotty wakes up, real antsy.

• 41:14Jason Bateman?

  I never feel rested. I never feel rested.

• 41:20Speaker 03

  I saw an interview with Donny Osmond once, where he was extolling the virtues of sleeping on the tray on a commercial flight. Sleep on the,

• 41:31Jason Bateman?

  No, that always makes me want to vomit.

• 41:33Will Arnett?

  And did he say, and make sure to drink 12 rums before you do it?

• 41:40Jason Bateman?

  I love you've got Donny as a rum drinker.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Uh, Bacardi, Bacardi.

• 41:45Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, not the dark.

• 41:47Will Arnett?

  Top shelf, top shelf. Wait, I want to get back to, I want to get back to this long professional and personal relationship you have with the guy who let you into the improv group, which is Nick Kroll.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  The wonderful Nick Kroll.

• 41:58Will Arnett?

  The wonderful Nick Kroll.

• 41:59Speaker 03

  My best friend, older brother and everything. Mentor.

• 42:02Will Arnett?

  Okay, well, we got it now. We got it in writing and on recording. We got it.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. That guy sounds good. He sounds gracious. I sound gracious because he led me into the group and now just air it unedited.

• 42:12Will Arnett?

  You've been paying him back ever since. But, but you, you guys, no, it did. You guys are like brothers and, and you guys have worked together so much now over the last however many years since you've known each other.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Twenty.

• 42:26Will Arnett?

  Is that like a thing that you guys consciously say, or do you come back together every couple of years, or you're like, or you go, you do your own thing. You're like, hey, let's go and do this, or we, I don't know. How does it work?

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Well, let's see. For a while, we, uh, that's a good question. We don't consciously plan, you know, let's work together in 18 months. We love working with each other, so he'd be my first thought for anyone to collaborate with. And then we have things that we've done consistently, like the, the theater show, Oh Hello, um, where we played, um, these two guys, Gil and George. We did that in a variety of, uh, media and then did it as a, a play on Broadway. So like, that's a thing where we will talk about revisiting those characters specifically. And then obviously I work with him on Big Mouth on Netflix, but I, but he's along with, um,

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Andrew Goldberg and Mark and Jen Flack, and he's a creator EP, so I'm not doing that with him, but, um,

• 43:25Will Arnett?

  Okay.

• 43:26Speaker 03

  I'm lucky enough to be on it.

• 43:27Will Arnett?

  You're on it. Uh, Big Mouth for Tracy is a, uh, really funny, uh, very popular animated show on Netflix. It's been on for five, four or five years.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Tracy might even know that.

• 43:37Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Will Arnett?

  She might know that.

• 43:38Jason Bateman?

  She's like, God, and she's already moved on to human resources.

• 43:41Will Arnett?

  She might know.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  And we will be right back.

• 43:47Sean Hayes?

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• 44:31Sean Hayes?

  I got a flannel shirt from them and I love it. It's super soft and cozy, and I can wear it outside of the store and then kind of maybe even sleep in it. I don't care. Duluth Trading Company for folks who work their butts off. Shop online or in-store.

• 44:48Sean Hayes?

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• 45:23Sean Hayes?

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• 45:59Speaker 03

  And now, back to the show.

• 46:01Will Arnett?

  Hey, John, with all the things that you do and do well, how do you decide what to do? Is it informed by some sort of five-year plan that you've got?

• 46:10Speaker 03

  No, never had a five, never had a five-year plan.

• 46:15Will Arnett?

  What about next week, next month?

• 46:17Speaker 03

  I'm a little, I remember a professor in college said, someone was like, someone said, "Just taking it one day at a time." And he said, "That's great." Of course, Mulaney lives minute to minute. And like, everyone laughed. And I was really like, huh. It was odd of him to call that out in the middle of a Jewish Studies class, but...

• 46:38Will Arnett?

  You have no, no sort of North Star, whether you, whether you, whether you get there or not, at least it's giving you direction and informing and helping.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  I'd love a knockout obituary and great speeches at the memorial service. But like, then I can't think, you know, of what's, you just want it to be glowing.

• 46:58Will Arnett?

  What do you want your tombstone to say? I've thought about this recently. If it could say anything.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  You know, I was walking around a cemetery in Connecticut where all the...

• 47:07Will Arnett?

  Where you do.

• 47:08Speaker 03

  Where you do. And the graves are from like the 1700s. And back then, people would, they, I walked by a grave that said, "Handsome and brave."

• 47:18Will Arnett?

  Dude, I'm so...

• 47:20Speaker 03

  It was like, "A hero of the revolution, handsome and brave." I was like, "I think I'm gonna take that."

• 47:25Will Arnett?

  Yes, so this is what I thought. I was thinking the other, I was in, walking around a cemetery a couple of years ago, one night, and not a big, just because it was a better, you know, I get a better view inside the window of the, it doesn't matter, longer story. Anyway, obviously for a lawyer, I can't say why.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 47:41Will Arnett?

  But, reading all the, all the gravestones, I was thinking like, I would want to put something like, "He was a cool guy." That's it. Because then if I saw that, I'd be like, "Who the fuck is that motherfucker? He was a cool guy?"

• 47:52Sean Hayes?

  You know what I just, I just read? I read that you can now get your body turned into compost. And you can, you know, use it to plant a tree or something. It takes six months to turn it into compost.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  They just keep mixing the guts with dirt over and over again?

• 48:09Will Arnett?

  You know, that's what happens when you just fucking bury a body.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  I get, yeah.

• 48:12Will Arnett?

  What do you think the body does in the ground by itself?

• 48:14Sean Hayes?

  It's a pickup truck worth of compost.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  So that just sounds like compost with a dead body in it. It doesn't sound like your body is doing anything.

• 48:23Will Arnett?

  It does. That's a good point.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Your gaseous, unembalmed body exploding in usable compost.

• 48:28Jason Bateman?

  I would love to see your search history, though, Sean.

• 48:31Sean Hayes?

  No, I did. I looked at all.

• 48:33Will Arnett?

  So would the FBI. Why did you buy all that lime? What's going on?

• 48:38Speaker 03

  I'd like, you know, I would like it said at my funeral or on my gravestone that I, some of my flaws, like he was late a lot and people talked to him about it and he was still late.

• 48:51Jason Bateman?

  Are you still? Are you still late?

• 48:53Speaker 03

  I'm getting better at it. I'm getting better.

• 48:55Jason Bateman?

  Do you know why you're late?

• 48:57Speaker 03

  I think, well, one, Saturday Night Live completely destroyed my relationship with time in that meetings that were supposed to begin at 3:00 PM would begin at 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM with no explanation or apology. So when I, after a couple of years there, I would meet people 45 minutes late and not think I needed to say anything regarding where I'd been.

• 49:19Jason Bateman?

  Wow.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then I think I'm better, I must think I'm better than everyone else. I mean, everyone else, I guess.

• 49:26Jason Bateman?

  What about having a kid now? Kid really puts you on a schedule, right?

• 49:30Speaker 03

  No, a kid put me on a schedule and I have made a big resolution to be on time, be where I said I'll be, when I said I'll be there. And I've actually been good about that.

• 49:41Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 49:42Will Arnett?

  Like Sean, Sean said, "I'm gonna be outside a fire station all day today." And you say he is.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  It's, I live in, yeah, in the middle of.

• 49:51Jason Bateman?

  What is your, what do you think you're best at being a dad? What do you think you're worst at being a dad?

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 49:58Jason Bateman?

  And I know we're early days and we're just trying stuff out.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  Best at, um...

• 50:04Jason Bateman?

  Swaddle technique?

• 50:06Speaker 03

  I am a good swaddler.

• 50:07Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 50:07Speaker 03

  Um, I am a good swaddler. I learned to swaddle somewhat from Ozarks. Where you give a brief swaddle tutorial, if you recall.

• 50:17Jason Bateman?

  Sean!

• 50:18Speaker 03

  And we were waiting on...

• 50:19Jason Bateman?

  You're not supposed to watch that.

• 50:22Will Arnett?

  What was your favorite episode?

• 50:24Speaker 03

  I love the one where you're laundering all the money and you know, everyone's like, oh my god, you know?

• 50:30Jason Bateman?

  People check out that department store, those glory holes and they swaddle sometimes. They sure do. Is that right?

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Good at swaddling, I'm good at, I know when tummy time is over. Before little Malcolm gives me that look like, Jesus, man, you're gonna get me out of here? I know it's time. I know that big head is starting to get a little tired of bobbing up and down. I probably am worse at overthinking how to approach him as an adolescent, which I really don't need to worry about for the next few years. But I am, I'm constantly running scenarios of what, of what kind of parent I'll be when he's 11, 12, 13.

• 51:09Jason Bateman?

  The combo between being a dad versus being a best friend?

• 51:13Speaker 03

  Oh, just like, yeah, and, and will I be, in my mind, I was like, I'm gonna be this like, semi stern, I'm gonna be this, like, I'm gonna kind of be like my dad with him. And that's all falling apart in four months. I can't imagine ever criticizing anything this kid does or...

• 51:34Jason Bateman?

  But who do you, I mean, you, you know-

• 51:35Will Arnett?

  Don't worry, it'll come.

• 51:36Jason Bateman?

  No, I know you. You know Olivia, Olivia knows you. Have you guys, has it become clear who's gonna be the disciplinarian? Who's gonna be the nurturer?

• 51:43Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a good question. She's such a wonderful mother and so nurturing and also...

• 51:49Jason Bateman?

  Here it comes, here it comes.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, right now, she's, right now, she's extremely nurturing, but I, but she, she can be extremely organized. She has packing cubes.

• 52:02Will Arnett?

  That was a good choice of words.

• 52:03Jason Bateman?

  Great choice.

• 52:05Speaker 03

  Thanks, guys.

• 52:05Jason Bateman?

  Now she can listen. So she's, so she's very good about organizing. Does that allow you to be-

• 52:10Speaker 03

  She's very organized, very disciplined in a way that I'm not. However, I don't know when it comes to Malcolm. The ideal I have for myself is that I come home in a suit, which is gonna be hard, working at home. And that, and that there's some expectation of your dad is home and therefore that, you know, that's intimidating. But I, I absolutely- Absolutely will never follow through on that.

• 52:32Sean Hayes?

  My oldest brother, Dennis, he, when he, when he had, he has three kids. He would let them with crayons draw all over the walls in every room. And of course, he, that would upset his wife. And they would, they would discuss it. And he was like, let them be kids, let them have like, and do anything they want. You can paint over the crayons, like, would you ever do anything like that?

• 52:55Will Arnett?

  Well, here's, and it should be noted also, he came from like Sean, you know, Sean's dad never got mad at them drawing on the walls or anything. He didn't get mad at them doing anything.

• 53:04Sean Hayes?

  He would just what?

• 53:05Will Arnett?

  Now, the reason is, he wasn't there, but, but.

• 53:10Sean Hayes?

  Well, if they hide the car keys, he'd hate that. That's the thing that would piss him off. Absolutely no chance of escaping.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  Who took my Tumi carry on? He was always mad.

• 53:24Will Arnett?

  His dad left.

• 53:25Sean Hayes?

  Who took my weekend?

• 53:28Will Arnett?

  His dad left like, like Cal L. leaving Krypton, like just on his own, like in an escape pod. You know what I mean? I don't know if that reference is right.

• 53:35Sean Hayes?

  Yes, of course, I got that.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  Well, Will, Will and Jason, here's what I wonder. If I, I remember a good friend of mine, when we were six, to his dad.

• 53:47Speaker 03

  He was so mad at his dad and he said, sayonara sucker, motherfucker.

• 53:53Will Arnett?

  I would laugh so hard.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  His dad acted mad. And I, as I've gotten older, I'm like, can, I don't know how I won't laugh if my kid ever like tells me off. It just will be, if Malcolm ever yells at me, it seems like such a funny moment that I won't be able to not laugh.

• 54:09Will Arnett?

  Well, we have, put it this way, I have videos of both my kids having, having breakdowns or tantrums at various ages. Cause they're so fucking hilarious, which I show them now. And even in the moment, you recognize how funny, like Abel, we had one Abel sing when he was little and he was like, something, something, because you're the worst. And you can see him go, in the moment go, I mean, not the worst, I mean, you're kind of great and I love you. So he walks it back in the middle of his thing. And then the other day, when Abel said to me, the other day, I went to wake him up for school, I think I told you guys this. And I go up and he's, he's 11, his eyes aren't even open yet. And I go up and I go, hey buddy, we gotta get out, we gotta get to school. Eyes not even open and he goes, play is gonna play.

• 54:54Will Arnett?

  I'm like, what?

• 54:55Sean Hayes?

  Players gonna play?

• 54:56Will Arnett?

  They constantly surprise you, that's the thing. And you have no idea how you're gonna react. And you just kinda go with it and I don't know.

• 55:03Sean Hayes?

  Speaking of not knowing how to react, hecklers. What's a good heckler story? Cause you're on tour right now, right?

• 55:08Will Arnett?

  Good for you, Sean.

• 55:09Sean Hayes?

  Thanks. From scratch, right?

• 55:10Will Arnett?

  Back to the list, back to the list.

• 55:12Speaker 03

  I emailed my, I emailed my bullet points.

• 55:14Sean Hayes?

  No, but I love those stories. I love heckler stories.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  Um, the best, I got, I was doing Bonnaroo one year. Uh, and I was doing, there was a big comedy tent at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. And, um, someone said, we've signed you up to do a show at the VIP Camping Ground, like the organizers of the festival. And I said, what's that about? And they said, just get on the back of this golf cart. And they drove so fast, uh, in a golf, in the back of a golf cart, which is like falling out of a chair forever. And they, I get to this, uh, like, I get to a plywood stage and there's all these RVs and there's like a microbrew truck

• 56:02Speaker 03

  giving out beer to these VIP glampers.

• 56:05Will Arnett?

  Oh, you can handle, yeah.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  And, uh, they had no idea someone had been brought in to do stand-up. And they, they didn't ask for it, they didn't want it, they didn't like it. I was not someone they knew who that was.

• 56:21Will Arnett?

  Uh huh.

• 56:21Speaker 03

  I was not someone people were excited to see. And I started doing stand-up and this guy yelled, "I think I speak for everyone when I say we'd enjoy silence more than the sound of your voice."

• 56:32Sean Hayes?

  Oh my god.

• 56:33Speaker 03

  And it was so articulate, it was so.

• 56:35Sean Hayes?

  Very polite. How do you, how do you heckle back at that?

• 56:38Speaker 03

  I went, I went, I, hey, fuck you.

• 56:43Will Arnett?

  Sucker motherfucker.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, sayonara sucker motherfucker. Jump on the back of the golf cart, speed away.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  That actually would be a good, I might close a special with that. After a really gracious thank you to the audience, I turn around and then say sayonara suckers.

• 57:03Will Arnett?

  It'd be so great if that became your calling card farewell to your audiences.

• 57:08Speaker 03

  This aggressive shitty little group.

• 57:10Jason Bateman?

  I would, I have this, I have this masochistic fantasy of doing one set of stand up, but I would have no idea how to, how to write a, a, a session of, have you ever heard?

• 57:21Will Arnett?

  No, we know.

• 57:21Jason Bateman?

  You know, yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  I mean, the very fact that you call it a session is not.

• 57:24Jason Bateman?

  Session. But you know how like some, some.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  I'm here to perform a session.

• 57:30Jason Bateman?

  Guys, guys, listen up. I'm here to perform a, um, well, you know, like how some music acts, they don't write their own music, but they perform them well. Have you ever heard of a stand up having a whole set written for he or she and then they do it?

• 57:43Speaker 03

  There are, there are, and it's kind of more of an older school thing. Like there were, there were performers who had a lot of writers and there were, you know, I really don't hear about it much anymore. There are people who do stand up who also do so many other types of sessions that, uh, acting sessions and directing sessions that they eventually have writers, but, um, most people seem to.

• 58:10Jason Bateman?

  Why don't you go to an open session night? Are there?

• 58:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, go to open session. I'd actually like to end stand up the way my therapist ends sessions, which is, okay, we have to pause now.

• 58:20Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  There you go. And then just walk off stage.

• 58:22Will Arnett?

  Jason, have you seen any good, um, comedy routines lately? Would you like to go see some routines?

• 58:28Jason Bateman?

  Oh, there's some wonderful routines out there at the, uh, the improv, uh, which is short for the improvisation there on Melrose Avenue.

• 58:37Speaker 03

  I like when people call, like adults call, like my brother go, I'm doing a play here in Chicago and he goes, you got play practice today?

• 58:43Jason Bateman?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  You mean rehearsal?

• 58:45Jason Bateman?

  Is this Dennis with the three kids?

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. Hey, I don't want to bug you. I know you're in the middle of play practice, but, uh, play practice. I know you're drilling the play.

• 58:54Jason Bateman?

  I do like saying practice instead of rehearsal when we're on set. That is fun. I do like yelling, uh, uh, at a hockey game, shoot the ball. I do like that.

• 59:02Will Arnett?

  Oh, man. Put that in your stand up.

• 59:05Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Oh God, great idea.

• 59:07Will Arnett?

  Yeah.

• 59:09Speaker 03

  Um, John Mulaney, we've taken up way too much of your time. The tour is from scratch.

• 59:14Will Arnett?

  Fuck, I know. Then why is that it? We could talk to Mulaney forever.

• 59:16Speaker 03

  I know. I don't want to, he's probably got shit to do.

• 59:19Jason Bateman?

  Encore. How about an encore?

• 59:21Sean Hayes?

  We could do, we could just do another one where we follow up on everything we didn't finish.

• 59:25Will Arnett?

  Which was everything.

• 59:26Sean Hayes?

  Every thread we start, just every little thread.

• 59:28Will Arnett?

  Yeah, we don't like to close stuff. We like to keep a million tabs open, you know, it's just, I know, it's.

• 59:33Sean Hayes?

  This, this browser has a lot of tabs open, yeah.

• 59:36Will Arnett?

  We're the worst, we're the worst interviewers.

• 59:37Sean Hayes?

  No, this was, you're the greatest, and I wouldn't want it any other way, you know, I mean, I, I think it was Vivek Murthy who said to you guys, "I've had a great time, I've had a really good time on the show."

• 59:46Jason Bateman?

  You see the way he brought it all the way back around, you guys? This is what a pro does.

• 59:50Sean Hayes?

  That's how you end a session.

• 59:54Jason Bateman?

  Double callbacks.

• 59:55Sean Hayes?

  Johnny, we love you, thank you for your time. A huge, huge fan.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  Love you guys, this was really fun.

• 1:00:00Will Arnett?

  You're the best.

• 1:00:01Sean Hayes?

  Thank you for having me, this was really great.

• 1:00:03Will Arnett?

  Thanks, buddy.

• 1:00:03Jason Bateman?

  Bye, buddy.

• 1:00:04Sean Hayes?

  Bye, Johnny.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Love you, buddy.

• 1:00:05Jason Bateman?

  Thanks, John, bye.

• 1:00:08Jason Bateman?

  Uh, John Mulaney, he's a smooth operator.

• 1:00:10Will Arnett?

  So funny.

• 1:00:10Jason Bateman?

  He is a.

• 1:00:11Sean Hayes?

  Every time I see him on SNL, even in the sketches, I laugh out loud.

• 1:00:15Jason Bateman?

  Seems like a good guy, I've never met him before.

• 1:00:17Will Arnett?

  He is, he's the shada, he's the shada of comedy, he's a smooth operator.

• 1:00:20Jason Bateman?

  Oh, God, that's great, well.

• 1:00:23Will Arnett?

  Thank you, man.

• 1:00:23Sean Hayes?

  Um, and, and doesn't stop, like, he just keeps writing and writing and writing and doing stuff, I just don't, I'm so envious, like, I don't, first of all, I can't write, I don't know how to write well, and then just to keep writing all that stuff that works all the time, and all those Netflix specials, it's crazy.

• 1:00:39Will Arnett?

  Yeah, it's a lot of stuff, and touring, doing touring and, and touring with stuff for a year, or a year and a half, and then doing a special, and then immediately, like, you got, you got a sense of his work ethic, he, his show ends production, you know, this was years ago, and the next week he's out on tour and like, doing it for a year. And then has a special like, eight months later, like, what?

• 1:00:58Sean Hayes?

  And enjoys the hotels and the buses, like, it's not for me.

• 1:01:02Jason Bateman?

  I wonder how that's gonna go now with the kid, you know, like, is he gonna be able to be happy about being on the road all the time?

• 1:01:08Will Arnett?

  Well, we know how that goes, it changes, it changes everything, and then, and you get like. Yeah, you know, it's uh.

• 1:01:14Jason Bateman?

  You better start working on that sitcom.

• 1:01:16Will Arnett?

  It's hard. It's hard, as you know.

• 1:01:18Jason Bateman?

  The sitcom works for being a dad, though, right?

• 1:01:21Will Arnett?

  It sure does. Every, yeah, why doesn't everybody just do a sitcom?

• 1:01:24Jason Bateman?

  Right. Just do that for the first 10 years.

• 1:01:27Will Arnett?

  Cause I heard somebody, they're like, oh, like I'm working this hard job, friend of mine in New York, like, works in this office and like, my job is so hard. I'm like, why don't you just get a sitcom and then you're at home all the time?

• 1:01:36Jason Bateman?

  Cause you can just order those on Amazon, right?

• 1:01:38Will Arnett?

  You're just signing up for them. You're so stupid. Stop being such a stupid idiot and get a sitcom.

• 1:01:43Jason Bateman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:43Will Arnett?

  Uh, but Mulaney is so, so hilarious. He's been so successful and he just, you know, he's one of those, like, he didn't sort of explode out of nowhere. Like, he just kind of,

• 1:01:52Jason Bateman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:53Will Arnett?

  He kind of built, he built, he built.

• 1:01:55Jason Bateman?

  Like Conan. Like, remember when Conan came on the scene and we were like, who the hell is this guy? He's got, he's got the talk show now? It's like, no. Well, if you look at his resume, like, this guy has been a beast for a long time.

• 1:02:06Sean Hayes?

  But the SNL, the ones that Mulaney hosts, the SNLs that Mulaney hosts are always rated huge.

• 1:02:11Will Arnett?

  Yeah, of course, which is why they keep bringing him back because he's hilarious and he always delivers. And so, guess what? Turns out that that works in showbiz, Sean.

• 1:02:19Jason Bateman?

  Yeah. Try being good, Sean.

• 1:02:21Will Arnett?

  Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit. I just realized.

• 1:02:23Jason Bateman?

  Are we still recording?

• 1:02:24Will Arnett?

  Yeah, we're still, I just.

• 1:02:25Sean Hayes?

  I saw my headphones on. I can hear you.

• 1:02:27Will Arnett?

  Sean?

• 1:02:28Sean Hayes?

  Yeah?

• 1:02:28Will Arnett?

  We didn't ask him his favorite color.

• 1:02:30Jason Bateman?

  Oh, fuck. Text him.

• 1:02:32Will Arnett?

  Shit. Who got an email address for me? Hang on.

• 1:02:35Jason Bateman?

  No, well, he did ask funny heckling story.

• 1:02:37Sean Hayes?

  Yes, cause I love that shit.

• 1:02:39Jason Bateman?

  Just a general, uh, that's up there with, what's your craziest audition story?

• 1:02:44Will Arnett?

  But you know what it is I know, I realize about Sean?

• 1:02:46Sean Hayes?

  Don't you love those stories?

• 1:02:47Will Arnett?

  No, I do. This is what I love about Sean. This is the reason I like it. This is the reason I like it, okay?

• 1:02:51Sean Hayes?

  That's so funny.

• 1:02:53Will Arnett?

  This is why. And I'm like, eh, it's because Sean likes those things when stuff goes really wrong in normal situations. He loves people freaking out.

• 1:03:04Jason Bateman?

  He used to love bloopers and practical jokes, right? And then those crazy home videos, right, Sean? Don't you miss it?

• 1:03:10Sean Hayes?

  Do you want to know what happened to last Saturday Late Show at the play?

• 1:03:13Will Arnett?

  Okay, yeah, of course.

• 1:03:15Sean Hayes?

  I shit you not, it was this long. I'm doing my, I have like seven monologues in the play. In the middle of one of my plays, and there's two or three other actors on the stage. And

• 1:03:26Will Arnett?

  I love that you don't even know how many.

• 1:03:27Sean Hayes?

  Blanked out, completely blanked out.

• 1:03:30Will Arnett?

  You did.

• 1:03:30Sean Hayes?

  Yeah, in the middle of my thing, I go, yeah, so I'm telling this story, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, uh, uh, uh, uh, sold out, by the way. Uh, uh, uh, and I look at Ethan and I'm looking at him, I'm like, fucking, please help me. I have no, my mind went completely, I'm like, no idea where I am. Uh, uh, uh, and then he says a line that skips about a page. And in my head, I was like, thank you, but I don't think I can skip that because there's information the audience needs in order to know the story later.

• 1:03:59Will Arnett?

  Right.

• 1:04:00Sean Hayes?

  So I was like, uh, uh, uh.

• 1:04:02Will Arnett?

  No.

• 1:04:03Sean Hayes?

  It was that fucking awful.

• 1:04:05Will Arnett?

  That long.

• 1:04:05Jason Bateman?

  What about somebody in the wings, anybody on book in the wings?

• 1:04:08Sean Hayes?

  I know, I said, and I said to the stage manager, she goes, I almost came on the god mic and gave you your line. I go, just do it, who gives a shit? I'm dying up there.

• 1:04:16Jason Bateman?

  What, but, but, but, but what about just kind of sauntering over to the wings in character to get a soda?

• 1:04:22Sean Hayes?

  They're in the back of the house.

• 1:04:24Will Arnett?

  So what did you?

• 1:04:25Jason Bateman?

  So what happened?

• 1:04:26Sean Hayes?

  I fucking, I don't know, I somehow, by a miracle.

• 1:04:29Will Arnett?

  And did the audience know, do you think?

• 1:04:31Sean Hayes?

  Yes, for sure.

• 1:04:32Will Arnett?

  Really?

• 1:04:33Sean Hayes?

  A couple of friends are like, hey, did you? And I was like, yeah.

• 1:04:35Jason Bateman?

  Oh, yeah, did they ask for any portion of their, of their money back? Like, could you ask for like five bucks back?

• 1:04:41Will Arnett?

  Here's the scariest part, Sean, here's the scariest thing, and Sean, we love you.

• 1:04:45Sean Hayes?

  I love you.

• 1:04:46Will Arnett?

  You told us this story verbatim yesterday.

• 1:04:49Jason Bateman?

  Yeah, once you lay down and get your ankles above your heart, Sean.

• 1:04:53Will Arnett?

  This is so, fuck, we love you, we love you so fucking much. We love you so fucking much.

• 1:05:02Sean Hayes?

  That's hysterical. Okay.

• 1:05:05Will Arnett?

  Uh, listen, I, by the way.

• 1:05:09Jason Bateman?

  Jason and Sean.

• 1:05:09Will Arnett?

  Just to bring it back full circle.

• 1:05:11Sean Hayes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Will Arnett?

  I'm gonna let you guys know, but I think that I have to go over to the store to check out the, the,

• 1:05:18Jason Bateman?

  The halls.

• 1:05:19Will Arnett?

  Dress rooms or the bathroom, because if, for no other reason than,

• 1:05:23Jason Bateman?

  This is a vibe.

• 1:05:24Will Arnett?

  I'm really

• 1:05:26Jason Bateman?

  Bye!

• 1:05:27Will Arnett?

  Curious.

• 1:05:28Jason Bateman?

  There it is, there we got it.

• 1:05:38Speaker 04

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• 1:05:43Will Arnett?

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• 1:05:55Speaker 04

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• 1:05:59Speaker 05

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• 1:06:24Speaker 06

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• 1:06:29Jason Bateman?

  Hey friends, Jason here. We're so excited the Smartless has officially joined the SiriusXM family. We can't wait to announce new surprise guests who we know that you'll love. If you want to be the first to hear new episodes ad-free and a whole week early, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com/podcastsplus to start your free trial today.