On the pod, the guys are joined by the one-and-only, Danny DeVito to discuss life, acting and all things Frank Reynolds.
Rob McElhenney: This is amazing. Just for the creeps and listeners out there. Danny has called no less than four times, trying to figure out how to get here. Now there is an address—
Megan Ganz: He’s coming. We’ve been told he’s coming.
Rob: We are a place. We are an address here in Los Angeles.
Glenn Howerton: We are at a place in time—
Rob: Mhm.
Glenn: Where we have phones that have a map on it. Now generally speaking, I’d say that—
Rob: Did he drive himself? Question—
Glenn: Well—
Rob: I’m gonna bet you that Meg being the A+ student she is, she got very specific with the directions of where to park, how to enter, into the alley, and then, and then what door to walk through.
Glenn: (impersonating Danny) but in what building?
Rob: The same one, with the address…is that correct?
Meg: Uh, yeah. I gave a satellite photo with a big red circle around where the parking lot was. Ummm.
Rob: (laughing) That’s amazing.
Meg: I tried.
Glenn: Eh. Ya know—
Meg: But you know what, it’s fine—
Rob: He’s an icon. He’s an 80 year old icon
Glenn: You can lead a horse to water.
Meg: You can lead an icon to a podcast studio—
*Laughter*
Meg: But you can’t make him show up.
Glenn: But you can’t make him walk through the door.
Rob: Uh! Wait I hear a voice.
Meg: I hear a voice as well.
Rob: I hear a voice I grew up with—
Meg: It’s like Santa coming. (clapping) Isn’t it?
Rob: Hey!
Danny DeVito: Look at that! Oh god, you guys.
Rob : How are you?
OPENING CREDITS
Rob: Come have a seat!
Glenn: In the hot seat. In the hot seat baby.
Rob: It’s so good to see you. Ladies and gentlemen, Danny DeVito.
Danny: Thank you guys. Oh my gosh.
Glenn: Ayo!
Rob: Global superstar and—
Danny: He’s late because he went to some people’s house.
Rob: How did that go for them?
Danny: That was really good.
Glenn: Here’s a question. Did you drive yourself or did somebody drive you?
Danny: I drove myself and I used the thing.
Glenn: Mhmm.
Danny: And I uh, I uh—
Glenn: We’re missing a north or a south or something? Or an east or a west? Was that, was that uh—
Danny: I have to pee by the way.
Glenn: Go pee.
Danny : Anyway it was like around the block. But it was really good. Ya know, very big fans. And I took some selfies. And we had a good time.
*Laughter*
Danny: But I didn’t know, I swear to god, I said when I called you I said “did you punk me”?
Charlie Day: Well you did. And you texted me “very funny” —
Danny: Cause I thought it was a joke.
Charlie Day: Yeah yeah.
Danny: And there was nobody, it was like a residential neighborhood, it was very cool.
Charlie: Yeah.
Danny: And the people were very nice. And they had a Christmas tree up, not as elaborate as you guys.
Rob: And you just knocked on the door?
Danny: I rang their little security bell. They came to the door, it was a newlywed couple, and they were very happy to see me.
*Laughter*
Rob: What did they say? What was their reaction?
Danny: They said “wha…wha….why….”
Charlie: “Well come on in!”
Danny: “What are you…”
Glenn: “Why?”
Danny: I said, “Well, I’m here to do the…” Then I started to back track, I didn’t want to say like too much, because I thought—I thought it was like you guys were busting my balls.
Glenn: Oh yeah.
Danny: I said like it wouldn’t be the first time.
Charlie: That would’ve been good. Alright, speaking of your balls, do you need to go to the bathroom?
Danny: That’s my bladder.
Rob: This isn’t a biology podcast.
Charlie: It could dribble onto the balls. I don’t know how—
Danny: Well if it dribbles onto the balls it’s gonna get really uncomfortable.
Charlie: Yeah yeah yeah.
Danny: I better go.
Charlie: Yeah yeah, you better go.
Meg: It’s right here Danny.
Danny: I’m gonna drain the monster.
Charlie: Drain the monster baby.
*Draining the Yule Log Graphic*
Everybody: Hey Danny!!!!
Glenn: It’s Danny Devito.
Rob: Wow this is a big day.
Danny: This is big, look at this—
Rob: Monumental.
Danny: I’m gonna put my sweater on.
Charlie: Yeah, get your Christmas sweater on.
Danny: Thank you.
Charlie: Ya know…
Danny: This is so good.
Glenn: While you go, while you’re putting on that sweater, I would like to pose a question to all of you, but mostly you because I’ve heard plenty from them and I don’t want really want to hear anymore—
Danny: You’ve had enough of them.
Glenn: How do you feel about Christmas music—
Danny: Yeah?
Glenn: —Starting to play before December?
Danny: I don’t listen—
Glenn: Before… oh sorry, before Thanksgiving?
Danny: I don’t listen to the…I don’t go anywhere where it’s like…I don’t go into an elevator.
Charlie: You’re not in the mall.
Danny: I don’t go to the mall. Nobody in my house plays it.
Glenn: Okay. Really?
Danny: Yeah. I mean, you know. But I don’t dislike it, but I don’t… I think it’s stupid. And Christmas is like, really, like, basically like just to sell things, right? Cause that’s what happened, like, in the economy years ago, around that time sales were dipping. So somebody said, “we gotta do something to fix this so let’s do some holiday”.
Glenn: Yeah.
Danny: So they picked a, they co-opted the winter solstice or whatever it’s called—
Glenn: Well Jesus’s—
Charlie: Well it’s Jesus's birthday—
Danny: Jesus wasn’t born that day.
Glenn: Yeah, yeah.
Danny: No no. No no.
Glenn: Hey! Listen—
Danny: What?
Charlie: I wasn’t there.
Danny: I shouldn’t say that?
Charlie: Ugh, what day was—
Danny: I shouldn’t tell?
Charlie: What day was—
Danny: You know the idea that— Well they already scientifically researched this—
Glenn: They found out he was born—
Danny: They followed the star—
Meg: Mhm.
Danny: In Bethlehem at that time of the year. That star didn’t exist. It existed at a different time. So he was actually born I think in March. Or April.
Glenn: Next thing you’re gonna tell me that the Bible is not true. This fucking guy.
Charlie: (Laughing) Well Danny, you’ve ruined Christmas—
Danny: Thank you.
Charlie: You’ve ruined Jesus.
Danny: Well you know actually I chickened out of doing the uh, the me to, the 23andMe thing.
Charlie: Ohhhh.
Danny: I sent in the thing, and then they sent me the kit. And then I said “fuck, ya know. What am I gonna this.” You know like. Cause I figure I got like a lot of…My family’s from Calabria, and from—
Glenn: You think.
Danny: One of my grandparents is from like Calabria, which is like right at the boot of, of, of Italy.
Glenn: Yeah.
Danny: And right there is Albania. And she spoke, I only knew her when I was like a really little kid and she was like already 80-something and dying like of something, laying in a bed, she broke her hip. Tragic story, sorry to bring it up—
Rob: This is a great, great start to the podcast.
Danny: Great Christmas story. But the idea is she spoke a language called Gheg. And now people out there may know what that is. Some people may know what it is. It’s kind of an Albanian kind of, hybrid, language that was an Italian Albanian thing. My grandfather of course didn’t like it because she spoke it with her girlfriends and that was the story.
Charlie: “You always a speaka da Gheg! I come in da room you a speaka da Gheg!”
Danny: And the language is like, I met one person on my travels who actually knew the language. Also a guy who was born down in the real, real southern tip of Italy. And the language is really beautiful. Like, like for rain…the only word I know is “shh. Shh.” And it’s all these soft kinda really beautiful sounds. Nothing like you would think like a hard Italian or an Arabic sound was all like, beautiful, almost like musical—
Charlie: People shushing each other.
Danny: “Shut up!” They didn’t get the end. They didn’t get to the end of it “Shut the fu– up it’s raining”.
Charlie: Shut the fuck up and get out of the rain.
Rob: Well Danny, welcome to the podcast.
Charlie: Nice to know you haven’t done your 23andMe.
Danny: I didn’t do the thing because—
Charlie: You didn’t do the thing because somebody shushed ya.
Danny: Well I was worried that like, you get the DNA out there and then you know how it is in the world everybody knows all this shit about you.
Glenn: They already know.
Danny: Huh?
Glenn: They already know.
Danny: They already know?
Charlie: They know.
Danny: Who’s they?
Charlie: The computer people.
Danny: Those guys.
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: The people.
Danny: Those guys.
Glenn: The deep state.
Danny: The deep state.
Glenn: The deep state.
Charlie: They know where you’re from.
Glenn: They know all about you buddy. They know more than you know about yourself.
Danny: So when are we going back to work by the way?
Rob: Ah, we start shooting at the end of January.
Danny: Yeeha!
Rob: We’ve got a lot of fun episodes that we’ve been talking about.
Danny: Ah man. That’s exciting. Don’t tell anybody yet.
Charlie: No spoilers.
Danny: No spoilers here.
Glenn: Nope.
Danny: Okay.
Charlie: Well, should we, should we visit the ghost of Christmas past? And should we discuss, either your, beginnings in the career? Should we go that far back?
Glenn: No, no no. We don’t care about that.
Charlie: Or should we just go Sunny? Everyone knows all that anyway. They can look it up.
Danny: Sunny.
Charlie: Will you talk about the beginning of Sunny?
Danny: Yeah. I’ll tell you a story about Sunny.
Rob: Well, did Meg have, do you have a structure? I would think so.
Meg: I have some questions but it was gonna begin with asking how you got involved with Sunny.
Rob: Okay.
Danny: I’ll tell you how I got involved with Sunny. Years and years ago, there at Jersey, I worked with John Landgraf. ‘Cause he was at NBC, and I needed somebody to run my television department. And we, he came to work with me. At Jersey films. Okay that was years and years ago. Then, that all broke up and he got this gig with you know, FX. He called me one day he said “I just did this show, 8 episodes of some really crazy show, that I’m like, I don’t know, tell me what’s your opinion.” So he sent me the 8 episodes and Rhea and I and the kids watched the show. I loved it. It was fucking outrageous, just the way they are. Okay. And we all, you know I immediately said “yeah this like, an amazing show. You should, whatever you’re gonna do with it, I don’t know.” And then I didn’t hear from anybody. Right you know like, I don’t talk to him all the time. All of a sudden he calls me up he says, “would you be interested in being on the show?” And I said “yeah”. I said, “if they come up with an organic character, something that was not just Danny DeVito coming into a show. If it was, if it made sense.” All that kinda stuff. And it was a good character. So they wrote me in and of course my two kids are tall and blonde and so I had to have, eventually as we all know my wife was a whore. So that was my first involvement in the show.
Glenn: But why this show? To return to television? Why?
Danny: Everybody asks me that. Every single person that I knew asked me that. The doorman asked me that. Why are you gonna do that show? You were like a tv icon. You were in one of the most popular shows in the world “Taxi”. You were all this, blah blah blah blah why do this show? And I felt like, it’s why do you do anything? It’s a gut feeling, you feel comfortable. Then I had that meeting with you guys where we sat and talked about it—
Glenn: Yup.
Danny: You know where I was probably drunk.
Phone dings
Danny: Sorry.
Charlie: Dr. Kipper calling you.
Glenn: It’s Dr. Kipper.
Rob: Kipper!
Danny: You had him on the show? I missed it.
Charlie: You can take the call.
Danny: Hey Dave.
*Laughter*
Danny: Hey man—Oh no Valentina? Oh no I’m not getting a needle. I’m hanging up on you. I’m not getting a shot. Okay goodbye. I gotta go.
Charlie: Danny I often think about, you having the foresight to, cause I think it’s really easy to start to get some success to get really careful and protective of that success.
Danny: Yeah.
Charlie: Just the guts to say, I think I’m gonna jump into this thing. And to be able to see it, and to see the potential of it. I think you know, you often read about, I was just reading an article and it was talking about how much Burt Reynolds hated doing “Boogie Nights”, and was just dragging PTA the whole time. And like, I think there’s a point in your career where you’re like what am I doing, I’m doing a movie about the porn industry or what am I doing, I’m running around in Philly and they’re shooting on these crappy little cameras. But, I think you have that, and always have had that ability to kind of see what could work. It’s a gift.
Danny: What were you gonna say?
Glenn: Well I was gonna say were you thinking that far ahead or were you just like this’ll be fun.
Danny: Oh yeah I was thinking immediate. I always think like right now. What’s going on right now. So like, I did say what I said to Landgraf, he probably communicated to you that I was interested, and then we had that meeting and you told the story–
Rob: There was a meeting before that. ‘Cause I came to your house, just me and I remember that Lucy answered the door. And I remember that I was really nervous and we weren’t sure if it was gonna happen but it was not communicated to us that you were…you were interested but you weren’t in.
Danny: No I wasn’t in. No.
Rob: And so I had to go there and kinda pitch you the character that we had discussed and Lucy answered the door. And from the time that she went, she had, she brought me into that dining room area that you had and she called out to you. By the time you got there, I realized you were gonna do the show. And I knew you were because of how much Lucy loved the show.
Danny: Dug it. She dug it.
Rob: And I feel like that has to have had some sort of impact that your kids were just saying, “dad you should do this.”
Danny: Oh yeah well they were, we were all pissin’ at the show. We loved it. But they were like really enthusiastic about it and you know, like everybody, and you’ve all experienced this now because your successful and you’re on television for 16 years or whatever it is and but the idea is people will tell you, they’ll warn you, like, people said to me why, oh you’re gonna do that? That cable show? You’re gonna do that show after you, you know you can go to a network show, you gotta wait for movies to come along, you gotta, and if you sit and let people do that to you you’ll never do anything. You know you gotta go with your gut feeling. And then you wrote a great character you know and it was, we digested the fact that Sweet Dee and Dennis were like almost 6 feet tall and blonde. They are my kids but you know we worked on it.
Meg: But does your gut feeling tell you that show is gonna 15 plus years?
Danny: No. But, and I do know this about our show that in the first couple of seasons that I was on the show already, we were still in the toilet. And it was like, and what it is it’s stickin’ to it. Like they stuck with us at FX, John and everybody and they promoted it and we kept doing it and our enthusiasm lifted it up and then once you, we got traction…”Cheers” the first 2 seasons was in the toilet, nobody saw that show, Brandon Tartikoff stuff—-
Glenn: Really?
Danny: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s about a good show.
Rob: Seinfeld same.
Charlie: Seinfeld same right.
Rob: But that’s why you hear John Landgraf talk all the time about, I was just talking about it with him this weekend. He talks about the streamers and the algorithms and making decisions, he’s like, shows like Sunny would never exist if we operated the same way.
Danny: Exactly.
Rob: You have to go with your gut and sometimes your gut’s wrong, sometimes your gut’s right, but it’s the only thing ya got.
Danny: But sticking to it has got a lot to do with it even “Taxi” we went 5 years and we were still doing well and we had Brooks and Weinberger and Stan Daniels and Dave Davis writing for the show. All these people who were that were great writers okay they never let you down. But in the 5th season, ABC, and I’m not afraid to say this, they just fucked us up. They moved us to every different night, they were using us or trying to use us as a lead in or whatever the fuck they were doing, and then they canceled our show. The year that I think everybody won an Emmy, and the show won an Emmy, they canceled the show. We were like blind sided. I was in New York, gonna do Saturday Night Live for the first time as a host, ya know? And I got the news, everybody was—
Charlie: The night of the show?
Danny: No no no no a week before and I said and we all got together all the cast and Brooks and whoever was around, we got drunk as we called everybody we said “what the fuck you’re cancelling Taxi?” We were like, devastated. Ya know, and we got really piss drunk and uh I remember calling Lorne Michaels and saying I want to bring everybody on the show and we did, he did. My first line I think on the center stage was, after the applause died down, thank you very much, I said can you believe ABC canceled Taxi. And the fucking people went crazy.
Rob: You have one of the greatest entrances in the history of television. That introduced the world, not only the world to the character Louie De Palma, but the actor Danny DeVito and I think it’s worth because, my guess is the vast majority of people who are watching this podcast, did not see that first episode of Taxi and it is, it might be worth putting in the podcast Meg because it is one of the funniest moments in television history.
Danny: A little bit of history for Louie it was a voice first, like Carlin, the door man, it was a voice and then they wrote the character a little bit more after I got in the show. And then I think it was Dave Davis, who just passed away, who was a real integral part of the post of all of the stuff that Jim did and all those guys from Mary Tyler Moore but he was the one who said hold out DeVito until… and they wrote that joke, and that joke was I pushed everybody around from the cage they were pow towning me—
Rob: You were terrifying.
Danny: I was terrifying and then when they wanted to borrow a cab I came out and I’m talking to—
Alex: Louie!
Louie: Yeah?
Alex: I need a cab for the weekend. I’m going to Miami.
Louie: No.
Alex: Oh come on Louie, I’m very tight on time I gotta leave right now.
Louie: No!
Alex: Let’s take it.
Louie: Hold everything. Okay, I gotta get tough with you guys.
*Laughter*
Louie: We don’t let cabs out no more.
Alex: Oh come on Louie it’s very important. What about 1621 nobody wants that—
Bobby: Hey hey hey, can I go? I don’t have anything else to do.
Louie: No!
Alex: I’ll have it back to you by the end of the week.
Louie: Alex I run this garage and no one takes my cabs for joy rides.
Alex: Alright. Come on let’s go.
Latka: Give me a minute while I go to the can
Latka: Thank you very much.
Rob: But that was at a time when you could air an episode of television and 30 million people might watch it, maybe more?
Danny: Oh, bigger.
Rob: 40, 50 million people and your life changes in that moment.
Danny: Immediately.
Rob: The next day.
Danny: Well one day your walking around, and then the show airs, I think that Wednesday..I think it was on a Tuesday night or a Thursday night I can’t remember…yeah Tuesday night. Anyway, the next day, you can’t go anywhere. You’re 60 share—
Rob: So that means 60 percent of the people who were watching TV were watching Taxi.
Danny: Yeah.
Charlie: Think about that in today’s standards—
Rob: 50-60 million people. That’s amazing.
Charlie: Just how many different streaming services, how many shows.
Glenn: Not possible anymore.
Danny: But it was astounding to uh… You know, you guys experience it with Sunny because I remember in the early days—
Charlie: 60 people were watching the show.
Danny: Yeah yeah—
Glenn: A 60 share.
Danny: And then all of a sudden when it kicked in you guys couldn’t go anywhere without people knowing you.
Glenn: I can’t go into an Irish pub—
Danny: Yeah there’s no way—
Glenn: I can pretty much go anywhere else—
*Laughter*
Glenn: In Philly, it’s maybe a little different.
Danny: You can’t go anywhere.
Charlie: The first time I remember actually really experiencing that was one of the few early seasons maybe we were doing press for season 2 or 3 and we were in New York and we went out to a Yankees game with you—
Glenn: Oh yeah I remember that—
Charlie: and people started spotting you and a crowd started to swarm around you it was the first time that I had that feeling of like, oh this is a little unnerving, this is borderline dangerous like, who’s in this crowd? What do they want? It can get a little scary—
Danny: It gets a little scary when uh—
Charlie: Just when it gets a little big and packed in. You know we’ve had that in Philly a couple of times—
Danny: They start swarming a little bit—
Charlie: Yeah but it wasn’t us I was just more like we gotta get Danny out of here ya know—
Danny: Yeah you get me in the car and shut the door—
Charlie: Like there’s Paul McCartney out there—
*Laughter*
Rob: Tell us about the goatee.
Danny: My goatee?
Rob: Yeah, is this for a reason?
Danny: Well yeah. It’s for a movie that I just did with Chris Pine. His movie is called Pool Man. So I grew uh I grew some hair, now my hair’s a little shorter but I had a pony tail sticking out of the hat you know like kinda Cha Cha was a big kinda influence except for their goatee—
Rob: We’ve talked about Cha Cha a lot on the podcast.
Danny: Yeah god rest his soul. I just felt like you know like the character of, like umm, in the movie was really a lot Cha Cha but I put a goatee on and a mustache—
Rob: It looks cool.
Danny: The goatee and the mustache and the hat is Little Demon. I mean, we had so much fun doing that Little Demon it’s just like off the charts and it’s really weird. I mean you guys did animation but and we’ve all done voices and stuff but to go from soup to nuts with Little Demon was, I think the first time I heard the pitch was about 4-5 years ago—
Glenn: Yeah.
Danny: and then every little step to get to the first script and then to get the green light doing the animation was like and Jake, Jake and Lucy did it-
Rob: Yeah.
Danny: basically did, they did what you guys do you guys show run our show but you know that the intensity of doing that—
Charlie: Ah it’s so much work.
Danny: It’s so much work, and then you know I’ve got the easy job in this Sunny uh show where I just come and fuck up my lines—
Charlie: Easy until we say, “hey Danny, so we’re gonna cover you in baby oil and slide you across the floor.”
*Laughter*
Danny: Easy until the ya know—-
Glenn: Oh we got something for you this year. We got something for you this year, man.
Danny: I can’t wait. But Little Demon was like everybody in it, all the, we had to do it during Covid, we send the kits to everybody’s house, and did it online and all that just a glorious experience—
Rob: And the shows doing really well—
Danny: Shows doing really well we really got incredible accolades, we need more fans, we need all the Sunny fans to watch it on Hulu—
Glenn: It takes time.
Danny: It takes time.
Charlie: Danny, you once told me a story going back further going back even pre Taxi—
Danny: Yes—
Charlie: you told me a story about one of your first off broadway gigs where you were replaced Bill Devane, William Devane in a play—
Danny: Right, yes.
Charlie: And then it lead to a different part—
Danny: Yes—
Charlie: And i think it’s an inspiring story just about sticking with something but also a little bit of luck and chance and staying just in the game—
Danny: I was doing an off Broadway play in the summer, a Pirandello play, 3 by Pirandello, 3 one act plays. I had 2 small parts in the 3 plays—
Charlie: And this is before any film television gigs.
Danny: Before anything this like 1968—
Glenn: You’re how old in this picture? 24?
Danny: I’m born in ‘44. Do the math. Okay. So a guy winds up directing this uh, being part of the play, he was like an actor in it and we ran this summer. He calls me up, he says “I got this thing I’m gonna direct but there’s this another actor who’s already set to play the part but I need to read it”. And I go okay, ya know I’ll go read it for the, there were backers there were other people they wanted, and it was a great part, a really irreverent stable boy, guys like a pig, like a really wonderful part. And so I go read it, but the part wasn’t mine. It was somebody else’s, it was Bill Devane’s, It was Bill Devane, Bill Devane was gonna play this part, great perfect for it, cut to, guy calls me up says, “ya know, Bill just got the lead in this really big off Broadway show and he’s gonna leave the show, and uh, we want you to step in and play the part”. And it’s thrilling right–
Charlie: It’s a huge break.
Danny: Huge break. Plus you know, at that time I think the equity minimum was 72 dollars a week which was ya know, pretty big—-
Glenn: it’s still about that.
Danny: A lot of money. Anyway, cut to the chase we go, I do the part, the actor strike happens, one of the actor strikes, we struck for like maybe 79 dollars, we were out of work for a month, in the rain, picketing, blah blah blah. We come back to work, different director, they put a new director in, the guy who’s my friend, they kick him out, right? Okay. We go do the show. During the re-up of the show, the girl who’s playing my love interest in the play, her girlfriend comes to the play, right? And we go have a coffee at the cookery, and her name is Rhea, right? So—
Charlie: You didn’t tell me this part of the story. This is a whole different thing.
Danny: So well I’m getting to the—
Rob: That’s not the good part?
Charlie: There’s another good part, there’s another good part.
Danny: Well I had to throw that in there because that’s how I met Rhea okay. There’s all these like—
Charlie: This play’s like a huge thing in your life.
Danny: So now we open on, I think it was a Sunday night or maybe a Monday night. Anyway, I lived not far, I walked to work everyday and I tried to get there early to the play you know, go hang out in my dressing room, screw around. I look up, there’s sets being taken out of the theater. I didn’t know they closed, they closed the next day.
Charlie: So you did like 1 preview for the reviewers.
Danny: 1 preview for the reviewers and the next day they’re scraping the sign off.
*Laughter*
Danny: I got no job, I walk in, right, this is the part that you, the part that you’re talking about—
Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Danny: I walk into the lobby, now the general manager’s there. I said what’s going on, he said well we closed, I said nobody called me or anything, I said you know shit oh wow—
Glenn: Shit oh wow.
Danny: So i got my stuff out of my dressing room, I’m out of a job and he said, you know they’re looking for one part, in this play, this other play that I’m general manager on, they’re auditioning now up on 72nd street, right? They’re looking for 1 part they can’t cast. I said oh. He said you oughta go up there you’ll be, I think you’ll be right for this part. I get on the train, or a bus or whatever I go up to 72nd street. I go in and I meet these guys they’re doing this play called “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” that I don’t know anything about. I walk in, I do, there’s hardly any lines, they said do an improv, so I do some physical stuff just on the stage… I get the part. Guess who’s playing the lead in that? William Devane, who bowed out of the other play that I took, that I met Rhea at—
Charlie: He’s playing R.P. McMurphy.
Danny: He’s playing McMurphy, I’m playing Martini.
Charlie: Unbelievable.
Meg: That’s the thing like sometimes like failures you just have to view them from a further perspective, then they don’t look like failures at all anymore.
Charlie: And how much did doing that play lead to you getting that part in the movie?
Danny: A lot. Because well, first of all, Hal Ashby saw it because he was gonna direct it first—
Charlie: Oh my god.
Danny: Michael Douglas was a good friend of mine—
Charlie: Yeah.
Danny: Got to, was gonna produce the movie and then Milos got to see the play.
Charlie: You know it’s amazing you do this play, you do it just long enough to meet your future wife and mother of your children, right and then it ends, and then it feels like a huge devastating, but it ends just in time for you to get a chance to audition for a thing that will lead to a major breakthrough, a huge film, which will pave the way towards Taxi and—
Danny: Everything.
Rob: It worked out for everybody except Bill Devane.
Charlie: Bill Devane did fine.
Danny: No he did alright.
Rob: Yeah but he wasn’t Jack Nicholson.
Danny: No we wasnt well Jack—
Charlie: Jack’s Jack.
Danny: Jack’s Jack. You can’t—
Glenn: There’s only one Jack.
Danny: He was so right for that job.
Glenn: How long had you been an actor at that point?
Rob: Tell everyone your profession before.
Danny: Hairdresser.
Rob: Yes and people don’t believe that when I tell them—
Danny: I was a hairdresser—
Rob: Danny was a hairdresser.
Danny: Well I was first a gardener, then uh, uh you know hangin’ around New Jersey doing nothing and my sister forced me to go to beauty school, she had a beauty parlor—
Charlie: You might as well garden people’s heads.
Danny: Yeah what are you gonna do? And I said how am I gonna do this? She said well I’ll send you to school. So that summer she kind of prepped me for the school by, you know, my aunts and cousins and, you know, she showed me how to do the curlers and the thing, and she bought me, you met Angie, you all met Angie. She’s like the force behind the family. She was really the big mouth you know smoking the cigarette you know telling you what to do
Charlie: She says you’re gonna cut hair, you’re gonna cut hair, right?
Danny: Yeah. I went to the school the first day, I’m dragging my feet, what the hell am I doing? Even though I started learning how to do it in the summer with my family, you know, whatever. And then I walked into this place upstairs. I’ll never forget it. I open the doors and there were like 30 girls there and maybe 3 guys. It was like my sister just gave me a ticket to heaven. I went downstairs and called her up. I went to the phone booth and called her up. I say Angie, I owe you my life, everything. There was so many nice-looking women up there. You know, I mean—
Rob: So you went all the way through the program and then you were a hairdresser.
Danny: And then I worked for her. I went to work for her, sweeping floors, doing, she gave me all the old ladies, I would do all the old ladies. You know, and she had a big clientele, of like, ya know, and then finally I graduated into doing like styles ya know, I’d do like a young woman—-
Meg: Thank you Danny I appreciate you gesturing to me as an example—
*Laughter*
Danny: See I couldn’t do their hair, but I could do your hair.
Meg: I’d let you do my hair right now, if you wanted to.
Danny: You know I would do like some styles. I still know how to do that. I cut hair really well. So I started getting like but—
Glenn: Style’s from the wrong era but—
Danny: Well yeah, pageboy, or like a bouffant, a beehive. Oh yeah, I could do the beehive and all the shit ya know. Kinda one thing that I wanted to say about the old lady thing at the beginning, cause she gave me these, and I got really friendly with all these women from all around the, ya know, they were from all around, they were in like their 70s, 80s, some of them had like no, like hardly any hair, you’d have to do the curls, do the whole thing, and then, and then the first thing that happened, like, that was really weird was one of my clients died—
Meg: In the chair? While you were—
Danny: Not in the chair—
Rob: That would’ve been weird.
Danny: Thank god not in the chair, Meg
Charlie: She’s got scissor wounds, don’t know how she got ‘em—
Danny: She died, but she asked, her family asked me to do her hair—
Charlie: No, in the coffin?
Danny: For the coffin.
Charlie: Oh boy.
Glenn: Oh wow.
Danny: It was the first time that happened and subsequently I did several because I, my sister—
Charlie: Wait you were a part-time mortician?
Rob: You were a mortician.
Charlie: How did we not know this?
Danny: I would go to the mor… I mean come on, this is like, this is like gotta be a future sunny episode—
Charlie: Danny just do the dead body—
Danny: No, seriously, they’re dead, they’re there, they’re done up by the guy, the mortician, they’re in the box, they’re in the whole thing and I would be the last person, and I would take their hair and I would use the, there was dry setting lotion that I had from my sister ya know, I can’t remember where I got it, and you curl the hair, set the hair, right, let it set, then take it out and then cut it and then, ya know not cut it, but fluff it up, do a little—
Glenn: And then you were like you know what, I wanna do something else—
Danny: I think maybe this is the end of the road—
Charlie: Yeah the end of the road. But also I’m just catching now that the morticians don’t do the hair, what kinda bullshit is that? You do the whole body and face and then I don’t do the hair, I don’t touch the hair.
Rob: The hair grosses me out.
Charlie: The hair’s gross.
Danny: Well it was a request. I was requested.
Charlie: Oh it was a request from the deceased.
Danny: From the deceased family.
Glenn: So morticians I think do sometimes do the hair, is that what you’re saying—
Danny: Yeah, I think so.
Glenn: But in this particular case they were like no it’s gotta be Danny—
Danny: They needed Mr. Dan to come and do the—-
Glenn: Mr. Dan.
Rob: Mr. Dan was your name?
Charlie: The scissor man.
Danny: Well some people called me Danny.
Glenn: Dapper Dan the scissor man.
Rob: The scissor man.
Meg: The scissor man.
AD BREAK
Danny: Okay so then, okay my sister, enterprising Angie, sent me to school to become um, she wanted to sell makeup in the beauty parlor, so she sent me to New York to learn to go to Queen Helene to learn make up. So I learned—
Rob: Queen—
Danny: Yeah, I swear to god it was the name of a product, a line—
Glenn: Okay.
Danny: Like you know uh, Loreal, Clairol…and I went to this place it was the weirdest it was almost out of like a a Fritz Lang movie. You went into this hotel and the lobby is like small and dark and then there’s steps that went down into a place that said Queen Helene. And it was like, it was almost like you would think there was gonna be a fortune teller down there—-
Glenn: Yeah yeah yeah, that’s what I was imagining.
Danny: It was really interesting. And I met this woman, and she said, well you know I teach a makeup class at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, every Tuesday and Thursday or whatever, granted, I don’t think I ever thought of becoming an actor before that—
Glenn: No, no though
Rob: That’s amazing…in high school?
Danny: No, well I did a play in high school—
Glenn: You did?
Danny: I did a no speaking tableau. I played St. Francis of Assisi and in a robe, and uh without shoes and socks. And it was a tableau, I played a saint.
Glenn: But no real thought of becoming an actor at that point.
Danny: No real thought of being, and I only did that because I wanted to get a good grade in my english class, and I wasn’t paying attention in that so—
Glenn: Sure.
Charlie: I’ll do it, but I’m gonna style corpse hair one day so—-
*Laughter*
Danny: I’m going down to the mortuary, gonna get that wax. And man they feel weird too, you ever feel a dead person—
Glenn: Oh yeah, I mean sorry no.
Danny: They feel weird.
Meg: It’s right away, “oh yeah”.
Charlie: Oh yes, oh yes.
Danny: Have you ever tried, have you ever seen a dead person up close?
Charlie: Yes.
Meg: Yes.
Rob: Yes.
Glenn: Honestly like once, I was like I’m good.
Danny: I was a kid in, I was an alter boy, okay? This is a good one. And I used to do, there was a 6:00 mass and 6:30 mass and you’d fight over it because who the hell wants to get up at 6:00 and go to the alter? So I get the 6:30 mass one day for my friend whos doing the 6:00 mass. I got there a little early, freezing cold, New Jersey, 4, maybe 5 old ladies in the big church for the 6:00 mass, right? I go early. I go into one of the front pues, I sit there and watch they’re finishing the mass, all of a sudden I hear a *noise* thud. And i look over, and there’s a dead lady right there, right here, like right where you are, looking up at me with her eyes open, it was scary as shit. And I go, “Ho! Ho!”
Charlie: Was there like a knife and a note—-
*Laughter*
Danny: There was no…she dropped dead right next to me like with her like staring at me, Charlie like—-
Meg: Her last words were do my hair.
Rob: Do my hair.
Glenn: Do my hair.
Danny: Do my hair.
Charlie: Do my hair.
Danny: That was way before I ventured into the hair business… so it was my first dead—
Glenn: First dead body—
Danny: First dead body—
Glenn: Of many.
Danny: And it was scary as shit.
Meg: The guys have talked about the bodies they’ve found on the podcast before.
Danny: Okay let’s not dead body it. Change the subject.
Charlie: Okay so you’re doing a couple acting classes at the beauty salon slash acting school.
Danny: And I get, I get like—
Charlie: The bug? What hooks ya did you like…
Danny: Well you get to get up and um do a scene or something, you know you learn ‘em, you learn a monologue or something, I can’t remember the first thing I learned—
Glenn: But now for a lot of people that’s very awkward, that’s very awkward. But for you right away?
Danny: Some people who are very interested in getting up and showing off in front of people.
Charlie: So you were extroverted already?
Glenn: But you were discovering that, I’d imagine. Because you had never really done plays so you’re discovering in the moment your like oh shit, I like this—
Danny: It’s really cool being up there
Charlie: But were you class clowning or do you like the attention and the—
Danny: I did like the attention.
Charlie: You did like the attention. Sure, sure.
Danny: I wasn’t like a bookworm who stayed back and hid—-
Charlie: You aint no wallflower.
Danny: Nah I was no wallflower, I was always outspoken, out front guy.
Glenn: Okay well listen, I know we’ve got some clips, some Danny Clips that we want to watch at some point, maybe some, what is it a highlight reel?
Danny: I love it here.
Charlie: It’s nice right, it’s cozy.
Danny: This is so great.
Charlie: You want something to drink?
Danny: Yeah a drink?
Glenn: Yeah you want a drink?
Danny: Do I want a drink? How about a hot toddy?
Glenn: Oh yeah.
Meg: Yeah we can make you hot toddy.
Danny: I’ll take a hot toddy.
Glenn: But can I ask you, because this is ultimately about the show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which you’re familiar with—
Danny: Which I am very familiar with.
Glenn: Now, when you started doing the show, right? You show up on the first day on set, did you feel like once you got there and you were doing the show with us, did you feel like you were in good hands? Did you feel like you were working with people who knew what they were doing or—-
Danny: Yeah I did. I felt comfortable immediately, and um, loved it right from the start.
Glenn: Yeah.
Charlie: Did you have a moment where you felt a shift in your Frank Reynolds like persona and performance from like season like your first season to like a few in where you’re like, oh I’m gonna try sort of settle into this character in like a slightly different way or did it feel the same from the beginning?
Glenn: Yeah what was that journey like?
Charlie: Cause from our perspective, it felt like around the 3rd or 4th season that you figured something else out about the guy, like an even more casual approach that was even funnier than what you were already doing, not to say the other stuff wasn’t funny cause it was hilarious, that we just fell in love with and started writing to more specifically.
Danny: Yeah. No I think I, it got deeper. It got more into like the uh, see one of my favorite things was the, I describe it to you in that scene where I say I wanna be wanna live in squalor—-
Frank: I used to live like this, in squalor, in filth. Always trying to over on people, scamming my way through situations.
Charlie: Wow, I don’t care.
Frank: I wanna live like you again Charlie.
Danny: And so I felt like that was the direction that Frank was going. More and more extreme. And I always used to say to you, push the envelope. Let’s do more outrageous things. Not only because I thought that’s what the audience would like, and the fans would like, but that I would like—
Glenn: That’s what you wanted to do.
Danny: I feel like I would like, I like to you know, I love when you throw me out of window, I love when I lose my memory, I love when I got you know like caught in a—you know—
Glenn: Coil.
Danny: Porta potty. Or a coil in my underwear. Or slimed, or like and if you look at the milestones of it you can say like, you know when this happened to me and when that happened to me, and when blah blah blah all the way down the line. As a through line for Frank’s character.
Glenn: You do start off, you know basically, you’ve become someone that you don’t like, which is like this buttoned up business guy who, you made lots of money, you were very successful, but you’re not happy—
Danny: Yeah.
Glenn: You want to go back to living like you were when you were younger and you know, so your journey as a character mirrors maybe a little bit your journey as an actor on the show where you know, initially, you’re like trying to figure out how do I fit into this, what is this, like how, you know what I mean? Like what’s my role in this?
Danny: I always feel that like in a, when you’re doing a movie, or a part when it’s a, if it’s not written, you always create that back story for yourself. You find out, you know even beyond the thing, what happened to Martini after Cuckoo’s Nest? Where does that character go? What’s the journey of the character? Like Frank, I feel like has so much, there’s so much range to that character—
Glenn: Yeah.
Danny: To Frank Reynolds. You’ve given me like a canvas, ya know, and you feed it, you feed it. I mean like, why do I get to become a germaphobic, why do I, how how, what happens to me, you know, how, and then how far can we take it?
Mac: Why is there hand sanitizer all over the floor?
Dennis: Oh
Dee: Frank?
Dennis: Oh my god.
Dee: What the hell did you do to yourself?
Frank: I just wanna be pure.
Meg: I have to say that trying to pick the best clips of you on the show Danny—
Glenn: Oh it’s impossible.
Charlie: It’s not possible.
Meg: An impossible task. Um, so don’t come at me in the comments because they’re not all here. Because it wasn’t possible.
Charlie: Also even trying to talk about your career, man like you could talk about Twins, you could talk about Batman, you could talk about all the movies you’ve directed.
Rob: You could do 5 pods trying to list all of his career.
Dennis: That’s okay you’ll come back again, we’ll do some more.
Charlie: Yeah we’ll just follow you around with a mic like tell us about—
Dennis: What are you saying? A man and a couch?
Dee: Hello.
Dennis: That’s absurd.
Man: I believe there is a man in that couch over there.
Dennis: There is no man. There’s no man. Say some things about Frank Reynolds and make sure that they’re horrible horrible things and then we’ll deal with the man in the couch.
Man: Ok so there is a man in the couch!
Dee: Alright, just call Frank Reynolds an asshole.
Man: Who is Frank Reynolds?
Dennis: He’s the man in the couch!
*Danny laughing*
Woman: Oh my god, what are you people doing?
Dennis: Would you just say something about Frank that’s horrible, call him an asshole!
Danny: Look at the two of them.
Woman: Frank Reynolds is an asshole.
Dee: Thank you!
Dennis: There ya go! Come on. Oh great.
*Laughing*
Danny: Here he comes.
Rob: Aw.
Danny: Ah the greased halibut.
Rob: I haven’t seen this in so long.
Frank: I can’t breathe!
Dee: You are naked Frank.
Frank: It’s too hot. Leather couch.
Danny: It’s hot hot hot.
Rob: Oh my god. Yes.
Meg: Incredible.
Glenn: God bless you.
Danny: Remember the—
Rob: That’s the Christmas episode.
Danny: The thing is you know, you read the script and you don’t think you’re gonna get naked in front of everybody. You don’t care, everybody we all know each other, the crew, we know the crew. But you don’t realize that it’s gonna be like 50 background actors back there, like standing around that you don’t know. And then, the first time, you know that clip, is on the thing where—
Glenn: Yeah Kaitlin forgets her line.
Danny: She doesn’t talk.
Glenn: Yeah and you’re like—
Danny: She didn’t.
Rob: You’re just hanging out there to dry.
Danny: My line is “Hot, hot, it’s hot. Hot, hot.” And I’m standing there, you didn’t say anything, and then she—
Glenn: It wasn’t my line.
Danny: She was just looking at me like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
Charlie: None of us knew what to expect when we had, we had tested the couch—
Rob: Yup.
Charlie: But not had anybody rip through it yet.
Danny: Nobody tested the halibut coming out.
Charlie: And we greased you up and off you went and I think we only did one take cause we—
Rob: Oh you don’t need more than one take of that.
Charlie: And we were like, we got it. We got it.
Danny: That was like, that was hysterical—
Rob: I think that’s probably the most referenced—one of the most referenced moments of the show, period—
Charlie: For sure—
Rob: Yeah—
Danny: That was so much fun—
Charlie: Well we had read an article about people sewing themselves into couches—
Glenn: That’s right.
Charlie: And and then we were thinking like they were doing it to sort of like smuggle themselves maybe places, I can’t remember why they were doing it but it was a thing where people had been sewing themselves and were like it would be funny to sew yourself into a couch—
Glenn: That is what it was, it was people sewing themselves into—
Rob: Into car seats.
Glenn: Into car seats to get smuggled into the country.
Danny: Oh.
Charlie: Yeah yeah yeah.
Rob: I also remember coming in over a weekend and having seen one of those nature videos where an animal is being birthed—
Charlie: Right.
Rob: And saying, we gotta, let’s figure out a way in which we can do some kind of version of that. I don’t know it would be—
Charlie: Yeah.
Rob: and then these 2 ideas just found themselves and—
Danny: They merged.
Rob: Yeah. And pitching it to you and not really knowing how you’re going to react.
Charlie: No would’ve been a fine answer—
Rob: Yeah.
Charlie: Like if you were like guys I’m just gonna, I wanna, I’m gonna do it but I’m gonna keep my clothes on, we get it.
Danny: No, that was too good to, to pass up—
Charlie: Just be like in your underwear.
Danny: That was too good to pass up.
Glenn: Now we’ll see if you say no this year.
*Laughter*
Charlie: Ummmm—
Meg: Is there anything you’re hoping for to do in Sunny?
Glenn: Yeah.
Danny: I’m not getting circumcised on camera.
Rob: Okay.
Meg: Oh okay, that’s the line—
Glenn: Okay, we would never, we would never, no. We would never do anything like that.
Danny: Oh yeah.
Frank: Charlie and I, we go down the sewer and first thing we do is to preserve our clothes, we take, take our clothes off, we get totally naked, cause you don’t wanna get wet. We ball our clothes up, we stick ‘em up some place high. There’s this waitress that Charlie’s in love with and umm, I banged her. Charlie got really upset when I banged the waitress—
Glenn: This is what you’re telling the people on the tour.
Frank: It was a lot of fun, she was a nice piece of ass. Charlie, he’s my buddy, we sleep together, we hang out together. Once I pooped in the bed, I blamed it on him! Ha! One time the guys got hooked on crack, it was really crazy.
Rob: Just telling stories.
Glenn: I remember—
Frank: We found a baby in a dumpster, they wanted to make some money with the baby but nobody would buy the baby because it was white. They said I had to turn it brown. We were fightin’ over the sword, and just about when we were about to hit eachother with the sword, social services came in, they thought we were killing the baby!
Man: I don’t understand this tour.
Frank: Charlie wrote this musical, oh man it was really funny. I play a troll on the musical. Yeah, uh, and it’s called The Nightman Cometh. I can sing you my song if you’d like. You gotta, you gotta pay the troll toll to get into this boy’s hole.
Man: (speaking foreign language)
Frank: I was saying, oh soul. He thought, he thought I was saying boy’s hole. One of the things I like doing most is banging whores. I uh, I go out and bang a lot of whores.
Man: (Speaking foreign language)
Rob: That was so good.
Charlie: I forgot we had left that going for that long.
Glenn: That wasn’t in the script—
Rob: Weren’t we saying, Danny just, just tell us about the show.
Glenn: Recap, recap old episodes.
Rob: Yeah. Recap old episodes of the show to the best of your—
Meg: Oh so none of that was scripted, it was just—-
Rob: No.
Meg: Amazing.
Glenn: None of that was scripted.
Danny: No. Well it was all done. We did it all—
Rob: Yeah that was on a barge in—
Danny: Recapped it.
Rob: That was in Philly.
Charlie: Also seasons—
Glenn: We were like, it’d be funny if like his version of a tour is like just telling stories about him and the gang.
Charlie: Yeah yeah yeah.
Glenn: You know what I mean? Like that’s—
Meg: I like also that they’re like we don’t know who this is, and he’s like Charlie.
Danny: Charlie. He’s my best friend. We sleep together. I pooped in the bed once, I blamed him.
Charlie: Dude the long hair of that season too man, man like Season 7—
Rob: I asked him if he’s growing it out—
Danny: You mean my hair, yeah. Well how long do we have before we start—
Glenn: A month and a half. We got a month and a half.
Charlie: Month and half.
Danny: Yeah it’s growing, it’s like, look at it.
Rob: Yeah.
Charlie: Let it go, let it go.
Danny: I’m letting it go—
Glenn: Month and a half we’ll be good.
Charlie: We’ll be good.
Meg: I like the Giuliani stuff from last season where you had him painting his hair, that was fun—
Danny: Yeah.
Glenn: He says he has sex with hundreds of prostitutes.
Meg: Okay and then this—
Danny: Okay this is—
Meg: Another classic.
Dee: I will never step foot in this high school ever again.
Charlie: Right!
Frank: No! You can’t go out like that.
Frank: Look. If life pushes you down—
Frank: You gotta push back. If you’re dealt a bunch of lemons, you gotta take those lemons and stuff ‘em down somebody’s throat, until they see yellow. And if some punk ass kid humiliates you, you gotta do the only thing that’s left to do.
Dennis: Yeah!
Mac: Kaboom!
Dennis: Yes Frank! Oh that was a great speech man. That’s the most coherent thing that’s come out of your mouth.
Charlie: It was awesome dude.
Mac: You usually just ramble on and on about—
Charlie: That was like a basketball coach. Alright so what is it?
Dennis: Yeah.
Dee: Yeah.
Frank: Huh?
Charlie: What’s the one thing left to do? What is it?
Frank: Well, the thing of it is, is that, uh, there’s the lemon stuff—
Charlie: Right.
Frank: And then, you got Mac who’s a rat, and Dee’s body brace—
Danny: Look at how fat you are.
Rob: Yeah.
Frank: And that’s the thing of it. It’s good.
Rob: It’s good.
Glenn: It’s good.
Dee: What are you saying?
Charlie: No. You were gonna tell us what to do. We weren’t asking if something was good or if it wasn’t good.
Frank: I lost my train of thought, let’s go back to the bar.
Rob: Oh my god.
Charlie: You have a whole rousing speech and then forget what you were talking about.
Rob: We scored that which is interesting. That’s not something we normally do.
Charlie: Nah well—
Rob: Sometimes.
Glenn: Sometimes we like to score—
Charlie: Get a little extra mileage out of—
Danny: It’s a lot of fun.
Frank: This is a nice spot.
Mac: Yeah yeah, ho! What’s that? You were supposed to get booze.
Frank: Oh! This is ham, soaked in rum. It is loaded with booze.
Mac: Goddamnit Frank. Eating your drinks—
Charlie: Dogs on the beach.
Mac: That is genius!
Frank: Ow! What is that? I got stuck with a syringe.
Mac: Now give me a piece of ham, now.
Frank: The hell’s a dog doing here!
Mac: Get out of here! Get out of here!
Frank: Get out of here!
Mac: Goddamn dogs. I’m telling you dude, they were lurking before and now they’re swarming.
Frank: I’m not sharing my ham with no dogs. I got a great idea.
Danny: Oh this is the best.
Frank: Warm sun—
Glenn: This was uh—
Danny: Oh my god that was so much fun.
Frank: Cool ocean breezes. Getting ripped shit on ham.
Meg: So obviously you’re not in the middle of the ocean right—
Danny: No.
Meg: Do you remember wh—
Rob: No but we were out—
Charlie- We were out—
Rob: We were out a little bit.
Meg: Yeah.
Glenn: But the background’s green screen no?
Rob: Yes.
Charlie: After a certain point yeah it becomes—
Rob: Yeah cause I think we were shooting it…why is that?
Glenn: I think we shot it in a pool.
Charlie: No no no—
Rob: No no, we shot this in the ocean.
Glenn: You did?
Charlie: You were just, you had to be anchored like near a pier—
Danny: You got any cookies or something?
Meg: Yeah.
Danny: Yeah I’ll have some.
Charlie: Snack.
*Snack time music*
*Ad Break*
Danny: Want some?
Rob: Oh I’ll have some popcorn. Thanks.
Danny: Yeah it’s good
Rob: We’re at a show.
Meg: Watching a movie. Do you like the scenes where you get to eat on camera? Cause I know the fans really love, especially when you’re eating peaches—
Danny: I love eating on camera.
Dennis: Jesus Christ, Frank. Get out of here, you’re an animal!
Frank: I like to make it in my mouth. It tastes better.
Newscaster: Do you think maybe you could eat that sandwich later?
Frank: I’m starving.
Frank: I just got sent a whole box of peaches. Real ones! I’m eatin’ like a goddamn islander.
Danny: You know how everybody like eats and then spits in a bag.
Meg: Uh huh.
Danny: I don’t spit in a bag.
Meg: Yeah you just take it.
Danny: Now once in a while I do.
Rob: Depends on what we’re eating. That, that ham, I think we were eating that ham.
Danny: Oh man the ham was great–
Rob: The ham was good. But once the dogs started gnawing on it I don’t think we wanted to eat as much but.
Danny: *Laughing*
Mac: Frank, Frank. We are no longer in relaxing mode. We are now in survival mode.
Frank: Will you stop being so dramatic? Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Where’s the rum ham? Where’s the rum— ahhhhhhh. Rum ham!
Mac: Frank stay in the boat! Frank stay in the boat!
Frank: Rum ham! Rum ham! I’m sorry rum ham! I’m sorry! Rum hum.
Glenn: Now this was a Wilson—
Charlie: Yes.
Glenn: Thing, right? From umm—
Rob: Yeah from—
Charlie: Cast Away.
Rob: Cast Away.
Glenn: Cast Away.
Meg: Oh is that what the face on the rum ham was supposed to—
Glenn: Yeah basically it was kind of a Wilson thing.
Meg: Oh that’s interesting. This is a uh—
Rob: Love this one.
Meg: The debut of “the move”.
Mac: Hey, how you doing? I like your top. Looking good. Mac.
Frank: Hi I’m Frank. Wanna get down?
Meg: Did you bring in that move? Or did they—
Danny: Oh yeah that’s all improvised moves.
Glenn: And then you improvised singing “go, go for it, go for it”---
Rob: Yes. There was no music being played—
Glenn: No music, yeah. And then Rob and I, went in post and added the lyrics “go, go for it, go for it” into the song that we put on.
Rob: This is us singing.
Danny: Because you don’t wanna sing a song that’s recognizable cause you have to pay for it.
Rob: Yes.
Glenn: Yeah but we also thought it was funny that you were singing that and we were like, oh what if that is what the song is singing—
Danny: Yeah. Like in Twins I did uh, I improvised uh, “tonight is your night, bro”.
Vincent: Tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight is your night bro. Tonight is your night bro. Tonight is your night bro. Yeah your night bro!
Danny: Because um, they were gonna use, tonight tonight, would be like, from the West Side Story.
Meg: Mhm.
Danny: But they didn’t wanna pay for it.
Glenn: Oh not the—
Danny: So I said, I said uh, tonight is your night, bro. And sang it over and over again until people made me stop.
*Laughter*
Meg: How dare they.
Glenn: What a wholesome nut mix. Yeah.
Danny: Man, this is good.
Rob: These snacks are good. Go for it, go for it.
Charlie: Dee! Sharpest item in the bar. I need it now, lets go!
Dennis: Woah! What the hell is going on over here.
Mac: Oh my god it’s—-
Meg: So this is for the listeners, the cold open where Frank is trying to hang himself in the bar. Um, a real enduring image I think from the show. Pretty amazing.
Charlie: Oh my god! Is he alright? Frank, are you alright?
Frank: Don’t try to stop me.
Charlie: So he’s alive.
Frank: I lost all my money in a ponzi scheme Charlie. I’m broke.
Dee: His neck is so thick I feel like he’s just gonna swing and dangle around for a really long time.
Charlie: That’s what it is. That’s what it is.
Dennis: I’ll cut him down, let’s go.
Charlie: Frank it’s not gonna work for you, your neck’s too thick, buddy.
Frank: Tie a chair to me.
Charlie: Times are tough huh.
Rob: “Tie a chair to me.”
Frank: Shit.
Rob: So are we suggesting that Frank really did try to commit suicide?
Glenn: Yes.
Charlie: Yeah, why not.
Glenn: I think that is what we were suggesting. That’s right.
Meg: Times are tough.
Danny: Not very good at it. Don’t commit suicide.
Glenn: No.
Charlie: No.
Danny: Life is too important.
Glenn: It ain’t funny in real life.
Danny: You’ll have a lot of fun.
Meg: It’s true cause, failures in the moment, as you said, might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.
Charlie: Yup.
Glenn: Absolutely. You’ve gotta develop a thick neck.
Meg: Yeah, yes. For life.
Glenn: For life.
Meg: Everyone should have a thick neck for life. Yes.
Rob: Yes!
Danny: Oh.
Charlie: Frank?
Dee: Huh?
Charlie: What is this, you’re stuck?
Dee: Is this your plan?
Frank: No.
Charlie: What is this? How’d this happen?
Frank: How does anything happen Charlie? Move passed it will ya.
Dee: I’m afraid that’s going to be impossible.
Charlie: Yeah. Where are you clothes? Why are you naked and stuck in a coil?
Frank: Just get me out of here.
Meg: So I just love, just as a story thing, saying “how does anything happen?” Cause nobody—
Glenn: Move past it—
Meg: Nobody needs to know how he got in the coil—
Rob: We don’t explain it right?
Meg: No.
Glenn: Never.
Charlie: It’s not worth explaining.
Meg: We can’t explain it. And the whole credits sequence is just him there with a bunch of kids running around—
Danny: Running around taunting me, right?
Charlie: When we got down to set, there was only one pole in that coil. And it looked as if any man could just easily—
Glenn: Mhm.
Charlie: Climb out the side.
Danny: I was stuck in there man.
Charlie: Yeah and then everyone was like uh, yeah this is fine, this’ll do right? I’m like, no this won’t do at all, he doesn’t look stuck. And we had enough time while they were setting up cause Danny had just come down, we’d just rehearsed the scene, and I said “are there any poles on any of the trucks” and there some poles and I was like “can we” —-
Glenn: And we painted it.
Charlie: Yeah can we paint it or cover it in blue tape which I think is what we did—-
Danny: Oh yeah.
Glenn: Oh is that what it was? Blue tape?
Charlie: Uh huh. And stuck those two other poles in.
Danny: Yeah, yeah and it made it, made it a little bit more difficult to get out.
Meg: This is a thing that I’ve seen people tattoo on their bodies. Him in a coil.
Charlie: Danny stuck in a coil?
Meg: The rum ham. Man cheetah.
Glenn: Rum ham for sure.
Meg: Yeah rum ham. Lot of rum ham tattoos—
Glenn: Lot of rum ham tattoos out there.
Frank: Very nice performance, very nice and clean performance. Welcome, welcome to our—
Meg: Speaking of mortician, uh, morticians, and morticians makeup—
Danny: Yes.
Meg: The uh, Frank’s Little Beauties really put you in uh—
Danny: Oh yeah.
Glenn: Yeah you had a mortician do your makeup—
Danny: What, what season was this?
Charlie: 7.
Glenn: No this was uh—
Meg: 7 ‘cause Mac’s fat.
Charlie: Yeah cause macs fat, 7.
Glenn: Oh I’m sorry.
Charlie: There’s so many jokes, well sometimes write—
Glenn: Mhm.
Charlie: And then you don’t know how it’s gonna be until you come out in that, mort, mortician makeup and it’s—
Rob: It’s so funny.
Charlie: 1,000 times funnier than we thought it was gonna be.
Glenn: Everything I could ever hope.
Meg: Stringy hair, down. And just—
Glenn: Just ghoulish.
Frank: A legitimate show of kids—
Danny: I look like, holy shit—
Frank: Which one of these talented uh, entertainers, who I am not attracted to at all, will be the winner? I’m not attracted to any of them. None of them. And that’s the way it is. Anyway, everybody put your hands together and clap for the kids. Clap. Clap. And you wave goodbye. Wave, wave goodbye. Go to your dressing rooms, we’re gonna start the show. Go on–
Girl: Hi Frank—
Frank: Okay just don’t touch me. Over there go there. Go to the dressing room over there on that side of the stage. I am going to my dressing room. We will be right back, I’m over here.
Meg: I’m over here, just such a great—
Danny: You know I swear to god, I look a little bit like um, Peter Boyle in umm—
Charlie: Oh yeah yeah yeah.
Danny: In uh, Young Frankenstein.
Rob: Yeah that’s what it is.
Danny: Uh huh.
Glenn: Totally.
Danny: Holy shit.
Meg: It must be really fun to do the show in some ways because every time you show up it’s like a different thing. Like sometimes you’re doing songs, sometimes you’re dressed in like a crazy costume, sometimes you’re stuck in a coil for an entire episode—
Danny: Right.
Meg: Does that keep it like fun for you?
Danny: Well it’s always fun. And like I said earlier, I keep saying, do more and more of that. That’s like what, that’s really, I love that shit, man.
Glenn: Yeah that’s the stuff.
Danny: You know like, so many things that we do—-
Glenn: You’ve got weird taste. Just like us.
Danny: I like losing my memory. I like that kinda stuff.
Meg: It’s umm—
Rob: Shabooya roll call.
Danny: It’s easy to do—
Glenn: And who are you?
Meg: It’s, it’s not needed to put you in a bunch of funny costumes and stuff because as we’re about to see, you just talking is absolutely hilarious so this is from the Family Fight episode.
Host: Gimme Janet! Gimme Frank!
Frank: Here we go! Woah! Oh! I didn’t get a good look at you before backstage. Shabooya roll call.
Host: Okay alright. We got some sparks flying already here!
*Laughter*
Rob: Wait can you play that again Meg? Just the move—
Meg: The move.
Frank: Shabooya roll call.
Host: Okay alright. We got some sparks flying already here! Let’s get up here and do this! Come on Frank, you ready?
Frank: I’m ready.
Host: Alright man. Top 4 answers on the board. Name an animal that we eat but doesn’t eat us. Frank!
Frank: Pig!
Host: Show me pig!
*Ding*
Glenn: Oh wait. This is where he changes, he’s like, I need to change my answer.
Host: Now Frank, you wanna pass or play? Pass or play?
Dennis: Play play play play!
Host: Alright so Frank, you wanna tell me a little bit about your family?
Frank: Yeah, wait, you know, Grant? I wanna change my answer.
Dee: What?
Host: What why?
Frank: I realized it’s not totally accurate because I’ve seen a pig eat a man. In fact, I’ve seen many pigs eat many men. It was a bloodbath.
Glenn: “It was a bloodbath”----
Meg: Certain words are just so funny to hear you say “bloodbath” is like one of the best—-
Glenn: So I remember I was talking about that, I remember seeing in the movie Hannibal, uh that scene where, uh that pig, uh those hogs, like eat that man. And it just being so awful and horrible. And I remember that being in my mind at least, the inspiration for that.
Frank: Roxy. God bless you. You were a good whore. You serviced me like no other whore ever did—-
Glenn: “Serviced”
Frank: Not only my crank, but my heart. I’m gonna miss ya—
Glenn: “Crank”
Mac: By the power of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Reid Mental Institution, hereby decrees Frank Reynolds to not have “donkey brains”.
Dee: What? That is an official document that says—
Dennis: What is that?
Dee: Donkey brain on it?
Charlie: Well it’s written right here in plain English. Frank would you like to clear this up for everybody?
Frank: Well, all kids in the neighborhood knew I got sent upstate. So they started calling me Frankie donkey brains. And it was very traumatic. So I got my mommy to drive me back up to the looney bin—
Rob: “Mommy”
Danny: “Mommy”
Frank: There, they signed this official certificate exonerating me of all donkey brains.
Meg: I love that speech cause you’re like running out of air at the end—-
Danny: Oh yeah I run out of air all the time.
Rob: He runs out of air quite a bit.
Meg: And this is from The Gang Gets Analyzed. Is that what it’s called—
Glenn: Yup.
Meg: Um, when Frank talks about his experience in therapy.
Glenn: Where he gets unzipped—
Danny: Oh my god—
Frank: I opened up to a therapist just once. I was a kid. I got into a fight. The doctor asked me question after question. Got me so scrambled up, next thing you know, I was Shanghaied upstate to a nitwit school. You know what a nitwit school is?
Therapist: I assume you mean a school for the mentally disabled?
Frank: Yeah. Not just for nuts in the head, bodies too. Back then science was real crude. They stuck us all together. My roommate was a frog kid. Ever see a frog kid?
Therapist: Frog kid?
Frank: Yeah. The place was windowless. There was a guard every 10 feet. All the rooms had drains in the floors so they could hose us down.
Therapist: How terrible.
Frank: Got my first kiss there.
Therapist: Frank?
Frank: It was terrible. But not her, she was an angel. Always smiling, that’s because she had no lips. But her mouth was still very much in play.
*Laughter*
Therapist: Let’s talk about the dishes.
Frank: She died 2 weeks later. She thought she was a spaceman with a plastic bag for a helmet. Ugh, you unzipped me. It’s all coming back! It’s all coming back, I hate you!
Charlie: “Her mouth was still very much in play”—
Glenn: To go to that place, but say such ridiculous things, that is, that’s what kills me. That’s what I love about—
Danny: Well the whole show is—
Glenn: It is—
Danny: The beauty of the show is we, are really, it’s absurd but it’s like, real—
Glenn: But I love your ability to do that—
Danny: It’s getting people to believe, digging a hole, they dig the hole deeper and deeper and deeper, but they do it with commitment. And they never wink at the, you never wink. If you wink, you’re fucked—
Glenn: No that’s what I’m saying, you’re so funny—
Danny: You gotta go, everything about the show is that.
Meg: Yeah.
Danny: It’s all about that. Doing it straight.
Meg: Brilliant.
Danny: Yeah.
Meg: Well we’re uh, this is you in The Gang Beats Boggs.
Danny: Yeah Boggs. This is Boggs.
Meg: Now do you have any tips for drunk acting? How do you—How do you drunk act?
Danny: I remember, uh, this scene. Oh, tips—
Glenn: For drunk acting.
Danny: I don’t know, I don’t know. No I don’t, was I—-
Charlie: Lot of research.
Meg: *Laughing*
Danny: I’ve done a lot of research on drunk acting.
Glenn: You have to research it. You have to.
Danny: And you know, if you really think about how drunks talk—
Rob: Mhm.
Danny: I mean there’s always like, it’s a little bit pointed and slow, and you understand that right.
Glenn: *Laughing*
Meg: Wow.
Glenn: That’s great. It’s very good here. I love it.
Frank: Beer me baby.
Mac: You’re 40 beers back Frank. Just sit back and enjoy the show.
Frank: I’m tired of people telling me what I can’t do. They say I can’t drink on a plane, they say I can’t bang on a plane, they say I can’t be a pilot? I can’t be a doctor? I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it right in front of your face, I’m gonna chug 15 beers right now.
*Laughter*
Frank: Oh that’s so cold. That’s so cold. (breathing heavy).
Glenn: Just watching. Just enjoying the show.
Frank: So many bubbles.
Meg: “So many bubbles”.
Frank: Just leave me here.
*Laughter*
Glenn: I love when we cut to you Rob, you’re just—
Danny: You’re watching him.
Glenn: You’re just like I’m just gonna watch the show.
Rob: I’m just watching him.
Glenn: That’s you. That’s not even the character—
Rob: There’s no way—I was laughing the entire time.
Charlie: Yeah we might’ve had to use, look from a different moment—-
Rob: Oh my god I was laughing the entire time.
Meg: We have the outtakes of the moment from The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention where Danny’s chugging the beer and the like—-
Rob: Oh my god. That was at like 6 in the morning—
Danny: Where was that?
Rob: That was in Philly.
Danny: Oh yeah.
Glenn: Was I there—
Rob: Yeah—
Danny: I remember that—was there something going on—
Rob: Yeah we did a live—
Charlie: Like a reporter came down—
Rob: Yeah—
Danny: Yeah—
Rob: A live morning show.
*Laughter*
Frank: What’s in it for you??
Mac: Huh?
Frank: What’s in it for—-
Mac: Don’t worry about what’s in it for me.
Frank: (Burping)
Mac: (Laughing)
*Laughter*
Mac: Jesus Christ. Alright go.
Frank: Okay (noises)
Mac: (noises) Don’t worry about what’s in it for me. Oh my god, Frank! Jesus Christ. What the fu—
Meg: I can’t have you leave without talking about some of your iconic characters of which we have seen a lot. Do you have a favorite alter ego on the show? Just to remind you we have—
Danny: Oh my god man—
Meg: Man spider—
Danny: I like man spider, man spider was fun.
Meg: Um we also have man cheetah. It’s a classic.
Frank: What’s up, bitches. I’m a man cheetah, you wanna do something with this? Rawr.
Charlie: Do something with this?
Dennis: Cool.
Frank: You like it?
Dennis: Yes.
Frank: Hello!
Danny: Oh.
Meg: Ongo.
Frank: Ongo Gablogian the art collector—
Glenn: Tattoos of Ongo. Stickers of Ongo.
Meg: There’s Ongo, there’s Mantis Toboggan.
Danny: Mantis Toboggan. Well, Mantis Toboggan is like, oh that was big. I love Mantis—
Rob: I love that you, in this performance if we have it, where you, you come, you remember your name or maybe you come up with your name in the moment.
Charlie: He remembers it.
Frank: Doctor Toboggan. Mantis Toboggan.
*Laughter*
Rob: It gets better.
Meg: I think that’s a reference to The D.E.N.N.I.S. System ‘cause you were talking about how you were a mantis, that you feasted after—-
Charlie: Yeah.
Glenn: Mhm. That’s right. Yes.
Meg: That’s when it came back to him here.
Danny: Mantis Toboggan.
Charlie: Mantis Toboggan, M.D.
Meg: M.D.
Glenn: Trashman.
Rob: Trashman.
Charlie: Trashman.
Frank: And then, I start eating garbage.
Cricket: Yeah! You got me.
*Laughter*
Frank: Oh shit. Did I get you Cricket?
Meg: “Did I get you?”
Rob: “Did I get you?”
Danny: Cricket. Oh man.
Meg: That’s another tattoo I’ve seen a lot of—
Rob: That’s a big one yeah.
Meg: of people getting trashman with his arms raised up in the air. Um, just pretty amazing—
Rob: The trashman.
Charlie: Ugh Danny—
Rob: There’s so many things we could talk about.
Danny: We’re gonna have some fun, we’re gonna have some fun next year.
Glenn: Will you come back? Will you talk to us again—
Rob: Yeah—
Glenn: Because there’s, I feel like there’s a lot of—
Danny: Oh my god, yeah—
Glenn: That we can’t delve into now because—
Danny: Pass me those nuts—
Rob: Yeah I’ll get you some nuts—
Glenn: Everybody’s gotta have dinner clearly.
Charlie: Mhm. It is dinner time. It is our dinner time—
Rob: I get asked quite a bit, what is, what is Danny like in person? What’s he like in real life. He is exactly what you think he is and hope him to be.
Glenn: Mhm. Yeah.
Danny: Wow that’s so nice of you.
Rob: Yeah. You’ve been a—
Glenn: Notice he didn’t say what that is though.
Danny: No, I know.
Glenn: Yeah yeah yeah.
Rob: I think people have an idea in their head of who they want Danny to be—
Glenn: Yeah—
Rob: And that’s exactly who he is.
Glenn: I’ve always marveled, I always marveled at the fact that you’ve played such, so many despicable characters, not all your characters, but you’ve played a lot of despicable characters, and yet, people love you.
Danny: I sh—
Glenn: What is that?
Danny: I’m attracted to despicable characters.
Glenn: Well so am I, but they don’t love me—
Rob: No, they don’t love you.
Meg: Why do you—-
Danny: They’re so much more fun—
Meg: Yeah.
Danny: To play the guy who’s like, you know—
Glenn: Yeah.
*Laughter*
Danny: You know…This year, this year.
Meg: I’m just laughing at—-
Danny: We get a chance to top it.
Meg: I could listen to—
Glenn: Dead air.
Rob: We got something, we got a couple things coming up for ya buddy. We’re gonna have a couple—-
Glenn: We got some stuff for you.
Rob: Moments that we’re not gonna be able to get through cause we’re gonna be laughing so hard.
Glenn: Yeah we got some stuff for you, buddy, don’t worry. We got you covered.
Charlie: Danny, you’re an inspiration. I love you to death man.
Glenn: The show wouldn’t be anywhere near what the show is without you—-
Danny: I love you guys. I love you guys. I love you guys—
Charlie: Yeah.
Danny: And I love you too, Megan.
Meg: Oh thanks.
Danny: Thank you for having me.
Charlie: Thanks for bringing us Frank Reynolds. And bringing the world Frank Reynolds.
Danny: Oh man.
Charlie: And uh, sharing our nuts.
Meg: (Laughs)
Glenn: Thanks for eating my nuts.
Charlie: Thanks for eating my nuts. And you wanna play us out? We got a piano.
Danny: Let’s do it man. Go ahead, you go.
Charlie: You go.
Danny: Play us out?
Glenn: Yeah yeah you go.
Charlie: Yeah yeah play us out.
Meg: Play us something. There’s a mic there if you wanna—
Danny: Alright man—
Meg: Sing, dance—
Danny: Oh, thought you’d never ask.
*Laughter*
*Random piano noises*
*Laughter*
*Random piano noises*
Glenn: Oh I love this one.
Meg: It’s a good one.
*Applause*
Glenn: Yeah. That’s a classic. That’s a classic. That’s one of my favorites.
Charlie: Come on, end on that joke. You can’t beat it.
[End Credits]