On the pod, Charlie and Meg are joined by very special guests, Scott Marder and Rob Rosell, the writing duo behind so many of our favorite episodes!

Megan Ganz: So if this were the writers room, yeah. Marder would be pacing, and Rosell would be lying under the table. Probably–

Scott Marder: He’d be shredding paper.

Meg: Shredding paper of some sort. Like into tiny pieces.

Rob Rosell: Rob would be lifting. Glenn would be getting a blood transfusion. You would be golfing. 

Charlie Day: I would be what?

Rosell: Golfing.

Charlie: Golfing.

Marder: Glenn would be drinking 100 raw egg yolks. 

*Laughter* 

Meg: Yeah. 

Charlie: All right. Ah, you sit down so you can get near the mic. You’re giving all this great content and you’re nowhere near–

Rosell: I haven’t seen Marder in a while.

Marder: No.

Charlie: I know. 

Marder: We’re gonna have to catch up.

Rosell: We used to–feel free to like, pry. 

Charlie: Uh yeah. We’re gonna dig in. We’re gonna get into some stuff.

Rosell: I listened to one on the way over here. 

Charlie: You did?

Meg:  Oh. One of these?

Rosell: Yeah. The Gang Sells Out.

Charlie: And so you’re like, “Oh. That’s what it sounds like when Rob and Charlie and Glenn talk to one another.” 

Rosell: I turned it off pretty quickly.

Charlie: Yeah, yeah. 

Marder: I’ve never listened to a single podcast ever. Cross anything. I’ve never listened to it.

Rosell: Why? What do you listen to?

Marder: Just ‘cause I’m rigid. 

Charlie: You are missing out man. On a lot of quality entertainment.

Rosell: What do you have playing?

Marder: What do I have playing? I don’t know. I–I–, music. I don’t–

Charlie: Well, let me tell you something. 

Marder: It’s not like I even listen–I used to listen to only Stern. And I fell off of that with pandemic. Like, I don’t know. I don’t listen–

Rosell: Just music. 

Charlie: Just music. 

Marder: But it’s kinda like me with candy and fruit and stuff. Like I’ve just decided I’m not gonna dip into podcasts at all.

Rosell: I mean–

Marder: Which isn’t smart. 

Charlie: Mmm. You’re missing out.

Marder: I hear like I’m missing out on tons of great–

Charlie: Yeah. You’re missing out. Because like if–like, um, you know. If there's someone you really are interested in and admire, like, here's an example. Like, I love Paul Thomas Anderson. I love his movies. I think he's a brilliant guy. There's some great, like Maron sits and talks with him for two hours–

Marder: I hear it's great. 

Charlie: You just get, you know, outside the podcasts, you just get little bits of things. So you never really get into any sort of quality–

Marder: I think part of–I work from home all the time. So I, I feel like there’s no commuting anywhere. So–

Charlie: Oh. We gotta get you driving more.

Marder: I’ve got no drive time anymore.

Rosell: That’s true.

Charlie: We gotta get you driving more. 

Rosell: I haven’t driven in a–in quite some time. To a destination. 

Marder: This was a nice change of pace.

Rosell: I did it. 

Meg: *Laughter*

Charlie: Get the fuck out. So you guys now are just, oh–let’s not–let’s start at the beginning. Let’s start at the beginning. Uh, all right. This is the podcast. Rob and Glenn have declined to show up. 

Rosell: Great.

Meg: Not because of you guys.

Charlie: On your special day.

Marder: It would’ve been cool if you weren’t here either. And it was just Rob and I. 

Charlie: *Laughter* 

Marder: Oh. Feels like we were kinda bamboozled here. 

Charlie: Let’s get like the writers room. The writers room. It’s like you guys showed up in the writers room, we’re not there either. 

Marder: There’s a rewrite that we owe in the last season. Like, “Oh. There’s a complete trick.”

Rosell: They’re excited about us being on though, right? 

Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re really happy you’re here. 

Meg: Yeah. They’re super happy.

Charlie: Uh, no. I’m sure they’re gonna be bummed to miss this. Um–

Meg: We just only have 4 chairs, so–

Rosell: I get that.

Charlie: Yeah. We only have 4 chairs. So this is–

Marder: I can get behind that. 

*Credits*

Charlie: Where do I begin? Uh. Okay. Well, first of all, how many seasons did you guys write on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

Marder: I think uh, I think I was there for 13. 

Charlie: 13.

Marder: No, 11. 11.

Charlie: 11.

Marder: I was there for 11 seasons. 

Rosell: I’d have to calculate it. Probably 11. 10 or 11. 

Charlie: Okay.

Rosell: ‘Cause you, you left for a few seasons and I came on for a few seasons. 

Charlie: So, oftentimes they'll hear us talking about Marder and Rosell. Uh, so uh, on the podcast we have here, for our listeners at home, uh, Rob Rosell and Scott Marder, and uh, you guys came on and season three and I would say made um, a huge impact on the show just in terms of your tone of comedy and, and what you guys brought to the show. Really sort of changed the direction and the tone of the show, made it so much better. And uh, we held on to you for as long as we possibly could. Until your careers were just taking off and we couldn't, we couldn't pin you down anymore. But uh–

Meg: Then got you back on the down–on the downslope. 

Rosell: We came crawling back.

Charlie: We got you guys crawling back–

Marder: We’re older. 

Charlie: –in the last 2 season, thank god. But uh, um, I want to go all the way back to the beginning. Had you guys been staffed up on a television show before you worked with us? Or was ours your first show?

Rosell: No. We had, we only, we've done one thing, right? The camp movie that was–

Marder: American Summer.

Rosell: –some sort of, it almost felt like a scam. 

Marder: From the American Pie franchise. 

Rosell: We met with a guy who had, he had, no joke five cell phones on a table.

Marder: We met him at the Grand Havana room. 

Rosell: Yes. A cigar club.

Marder: A cigar club in Beverly Hills. When we met him he was at a table with all of his medication on the table, as if he had dumped his medicine cabinet on the table. And was like “Sorry baby. I'm trying to regulate my pills.” Like what a crazy red flag. We still ignored that got into business with him and it was a nightmare.

Rosell: It felt like, oh this is Hollywood. This is what people do. 

Charlie: “This is Hollywood.”

Marder:  He would call at all hours of the day. Like, he’d call at 4pm “I love it baby. I love what you're doing.” He’d call at 4am, “I'm terrified. I think the movies going under.” Like, god damnit. 

Charlie: Did he pay you guys?

Rosell: Very little.

Marder: It broke down to like a nickel an hour. I mean–

Charlie: Yeah, so he sort of had drummed up his own kind of contract.

Rosell: He had some co–I mean, he was a, a, I won’t say his name. But he was successful producer who had made a few hits. 

Marder: Yeah.

Charlie: Oh. Okay. 

Rosell: So it seemed like–

Marder: We were big time.

Charlie: So he seemed legitimate? 

Rosell: He seemed legitimate. The cigar bar was a red flag. Being paid sort of like out of his pocket was a bit of a red flag. No one really asked him for, it was unclear what the plan for the movie was. But he seemed to have a plan and we didn't know anything. And we didn't have jobs. So–

Meg: Wait. Can I back up even further? So you guys were writing team–

Marder: Yeah. 

Meg: –when you started? See, I always thought you just were paired up on Sunny. But you were–

Marder: Oh, no.

Rosell: We went to college together. 

Marder: Yeah. We went to Syracuse together. 

Meg: Oh. I didn’t know that.

Rosell: We came out to LA ready to write. 

Marder: We were roommates. 

Meg: You met in college.

Charlie: You were 2 funny guys uh, who went to Syracuse. Uh, came to LA, got teamed up with a man full of pills and cell phones. Uh, and wrote a feature for this ma–was it a feature?

Marder: It was a feature.

Rosell: It was a feature. 

Charlie: Um, so now, a good example of the way, the impact you guys had on the show is, even you telling me that story right now. We would be like, “Okay, right. We have to do something where Frank is pitching someone a thing. And he's got five cell phones on the table and a pile of pills.” Like, just the very sort of idiosyncratic sense of humor and the way you guys look at the world, changed what we're doing. So we started doing things like rum hams and milk steaks. But, but before we get into that, okay, so you've done that, and it had gone over poorly.

Rosell: It kind of petered out–It was unclear what happened.

Marder: It overlapped with our first season at Sunny. 

Rosell: We had an agent who was sending us out. We would meet on shows. We were just like, we would’ve worked on anything. But uh, no one wanted to hire us. And we got a lot of “Maybe next season.” And then Sunny popped up, our agent told us that they were hiring. 

Marder: I don’t know if we were taking a swing that long. I mean, we wrote, we wrote a Golden Girls spec–

Rosell: It just creates more drama. 

*Laughter*

Marder: We were, we were 1 day away from being broke. We shared a bank account like Ben and Matt.

Rosell: Oh yeah. We, well you said, like you said, we wrote this Golden Girls spec that was called Golden Girls Gone Wild. That was like a crazy episode. And it got And it got a lot, really positive response. And we were feeling like the momentum of like, we're gonna get staffed soon. And then Sunny popped up. And we're like, “That's our favorite show. This is the perfect spec for it.” We sent it to you guys. And you guys didn't like it.

Charlie: I don’t even remember reading the Golden Girls spec. But, here’s–

Marder: Do you remember what Barry said he did? I mean, this is what our agent claimed he did. ‘Cause you guys went, “Ah. It’s too crazy.” So, Barry claims, our agent back in the day. A claim that he tore the page off of another sample we had and was like, “If you don't like those guys, check out these guys.” And you're like, “These guys, got the stuff.” And it was a Reno 911 we had written. And that got us Sunny.

Charlie: Unlikely. You know, I, I–

Rosell: Well.

Charlie: I–here’s what I do remember. So that, that this was our first season hiring writers. We had done season 1, and we had done season 2. When we were going into season 3, and in season 2, Hornsby wrote an episode. But outside of that, we, we worked with another guy named um, I think his name was Rich Dom who wrote an episode. 

Meg: Oh yeah. From The Onion.

Charlie: But we ended up using it. And uh, so this was our first time staffing up, we didn't really know how to do it. So we were just meeting people. Maybe we were reading spec scripts, but I think it was more. “Okay, who do the agents think we should meet with?” From all sorts of levels. Like high level guys and, and, and young writers, you know, men and women all over this spectrum of uh, of where they're at with their career. And we had asked for people to pitch us potential episodes of Sunny. And you guys came in. And you pitched us the thing about Frank being in a street gang called the yellow jackets with a bunch of old guys.

Rosell: Well, I have an addendum to that. Because I just listen to the, The Gang Sells Out on the way over here.

Charlie: Okay.

Rosell: The yellow jackets and Hawky, Hawky was Marder’s dad. 

Marder: Yeah.

Charlie: Oh yeah. 

Rosell: And he was, he was in the yellow jackets gang, right? 

Marder: Uh, he was the fastest thing on 2 feet. That’s why everyone called him Hawky. 

Meg: The actor was your father?

Marder: No. The actor was based on my father.

Meg: Oh. Okay.

Charlie: Yeah. So I think you guys came in, you pitched us that. Which we thought was hilarious. You probably told us stories about your father. And we were like, “These two guys are brilliant.” Maybe I remember reading Reno 911. But it was, it was ,it never really had much to do with the spec script. It usually had to do with, do we feel like we're gonna get funny ideas from these guys? Do they get what we're trying to make? You know. Sometimes people will come, oftentimes they would pitch us things and they were all just about like STDs and–

Rosell: The gang gets herpes.

Marder: We were, we were warned to not do that going in. Like, “Don’t pitch them STD stuff. It’s a no no.”

Charlie: Were you really?

Marder: Yeah, we were.

Rosell: Like, 11th hour like, “Hey, hey, hey. No sex. No sex.” 

Charlie: You’re like ripping through pages. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rosell: Definitely like, 5 ideas.

Marder: Yeah.

Charlie: I think, people were, were they were thinking, it was just a gross out show. 

Rosell: Yes. 

Charlie: And so they were pitching like bottom of the barrel kind of gross out humor. And we didn't want that. We wanted something like, yeah. Danny used to be in a street gang. And like, and that they, street gangs used to sing and the humor in that. So I remember. Yeah, I remember it was a no brainer to hire you guys.

Meg: Do you guys remember your interview with them?

Rosell: I remember. I remember it. Yeah. I don’t remember all of the ideas we pitched. I remember a few of them.

Marder: We definitely, we definitely pitched the flipping, flipping the coke. That was one we pitched on that first day. That became an episode. 

Rosell: Oh, yeah, yeah. The horse.

Marder: I feel like 2 or 3 of the ones we pitched in our interview became episodes that season, which was cool. 

Charlie: That Peter Nincompoop horse? 

Rosell: Yes.

Marder: Yeah.

Charlie: Uh huh. 

Rosell: I don’t know–I don’t know what we were thinking.

Charlie: Oh yeah. Selling cocaine. You mean–

Marder: Yeah. 

Charlie: Then we had this crappy crappy building in, uh, where were–Manhattan Beach. 

Rosell: Sort of. 

Marder: No. In Playa Del Ray.

Rosell: Yeah. 

Charlie: Yeah. Playa Del Ray, right. 

Marder: Middle of nowhere.

Rosell: It was like an industrial warehouse. That looked like, if you wanted a set for like a gang fight, you would do it in the parking lot.

*Laughter*

Marder: It was on a street called Beatrix I think.

Charlie: Oh yeah. Wow. Good memory.

Marder: Middle of nowhere. 

Rosell: I remember pulling in and seeing like, a pickup truck, a little Audi, and really old Lexus. And being like, I wonder which..who’s is who’s?

Charlie: Who’s is who’s? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I had that Audi then. All right. Cool. And then that was, that was the first time we had an office. So I don't know if you guys thought you were coming into like, a thing that was more of like, this is a show and we. But like, none of like, Rob, Glenn, and I, we didn't know what we're doing either still. You know, we're just had, kind of spit out two seasons somehow. This is our first time even having an office building. We didn't know if we should have computers. And it was our first time having a staff. Do you remember who else was on that staff?

Meg: Well, David Hornsby would’ve been, right?

Marder: Hornsby for sure. 

Rosell: David Hornsby. Lisa Parsons. 

Charlie: Hornsby. Lisa Parsons. 

Marder: That was, that was– 

Rosell: Adam Stein was the writer’s assistant. 

Charlie: Adam Stein was the writer’s assistant. He got a couple good jokes in that season too.

Marder: He did. Um, I remember–

Charlie: “I could go for some wood.” Was him.

Marder: I remember that first–I remember that first day uh, we were writers assistant. So we were used to being in rooms. But we were like, “So what’s the menu for today? Like, what’s the lunch?” And McElhenney’s like “What do you mean, lunch?” We’re like “You don’t get free–”

Rosell: That was my—

Charlie: “You didn’t pack a lunch?”

Marder: We’re like, “You don’t get free lunch?” And then McElhenney like stormed down the hall–

Rosell: That was my first–

Marder: –and I could hear him barking at someone at FX. And he came back and he’s like, “We got free lunch now. What else are we supposed to be getting that we never got before?”

Meg: *Laughter*

Charlie: Yeah. ‘Cause we didn’t–Okay, so wait, so you had been writers assistants in a room?

Rosell: Oh yes.

Marder: Yeah.

Rosell: We had been, both been writers assistants on various shows. 

Charlie: Okay. So you’d had some experience? 

Marder: Yeah. 

Charlie: So we were kind of looking to you guys a little bit to be like, “What does a writers do?”

Rosell: And we were very much from like, network shows. That were like, so different than how Sunny would function at it’s best. 12:21

Charlie: Okay, okay. So this is interesting. So you had had the experience of being, going to like the lot and going into like a nice building and everyone's got like a computer. That's paid for by the–

Rosell: Everyone’s got a computer. Yeah. There’s a lot of like uh, just things that you just expect to be there. Like your, your computer, your office, the lunch. The lunch, McElhenney’s reaction to the lunch was our first exposure to Rob McElhenney’s–

Charlie: Fieryness.  

Marder: It was awesome.

Meg: Rob justice. Got lunch for you guys. 

Rosell: Justice. Robbie justice. 

Meg: That’s what we call him here. 

Charlie: I, I’m thinking, I'm remembering now that we learned from you guys that the studio was supposed to supply computers to the writers.

Marder: Yes.

Rosell: Yes. Stuff like that, we definitely like, brought to the table.

Charlie: So we got on our line producer about like, “Hey, we're supposed to have computers.” And that was when I got my first computer.

*Laughter*

Marder: Yeah, I don’t, I think like Sunny almost didn't exist really in any. But 3 of you had really put computers that were like, “Can I, Can I see your scripts from season 1.”  You're like, “I don't know if we’re able to find those.” Everyone's like digging through like broken computers to find scripts and stuff.

Rosell: I remember at my desk I did have some sort of desk. It was makeshift and it was–

Marder:  We made a note in a room filled with chairs. 

Rosell: It was also an office in a facility that was like manufacturing things. Sometimes it was like very much not an office. But I, the script, or part of the script for Mac Bangs Dennis's Mom was on like a yellow notepad scribbled out.

Charlie: Oh, yeah, yeah. 

Rosell: And should have kept it.

Charlie: I have, I have a few notepads from uh, I have The Gang Wants an Abortion. Whatever that, the abortion episode. 

Rosell: Mhm.

Charlie: I have the, legal pads still. 

Marder: Oh, that’s cool. 

Charlie: My notes on that. Which was fun.

Meg: Were you guys tempted to tell them extra things that you used to get just to see like, “we get cars”? And uh–

Rosell: We were so nervous.

Marder: Yeah. I’m, I’m, I’m not bold like that at all. 

Rosell: So nervous. 

Charlie: Yeah. What were you nervous about? Nervous that, like Rob, Glenn, and I would be like, “Oh, we don't like these guys writing. Or their jokes or–”

Rosell: That you wouldn’t like us. 

Marder: I thought this was like the greatest show, like getting this job was like winning lottery. I mean, when we, when I saw Mac Bangs Dennis’s Mom, like, our agent gave it to us on like DVD or something.

Charlie: Yeah, sure.

Marder: And I remember watching it and then just watching it like, over and over and over. I just, I still think it's like the best episode of the show.

Rosell: It got a little bit weird with what he was watching. But–

*Laughter*

Rosell: –that was, that was the episode that got me too.

Charlie: Really? 

Rosell: Yeah. Like, kind of unlocked the show for me.

Charlie: Well, yeah, that's one of my favorites, for sure. So I mean, then that 3rd season we had to do 15 episodes–

Rosell: I know. Yeah. 

Charlie: –which was the most we ever did. 

Marder: Yeah.

Charlie: I don’t know how–

Rosell: Costume department–

Marder: It was a lot.

Rosell: –they were busy that year. 

Charlie: Yeah. Sure. ‘Cause we were kind of taking some bigger broader swings. 

Marder: Oh yeah. 

Charlie: And then like, it's been interesting, watching them back because the 4th season we start to find something. And the 5th season we really hit our stride in terms of the tone. 

Rosell: Yeah.

Marder: I agree. 

Charlie: All right. Well let's, let's get into a little bit more about the two of you guys. First of all, your dad speaking of Hawky, you would tell us so many stories about your dad and, and I ran into you at a party and you told me a story about your dad eating this canned meat. Which I was saying as, it, it, it wound up not working his way into this into Sunny that season.

Marder: Yeah.

 

Charlie: But there's so many stories about your dad would find their way into like stories about Frank. Um–

Marder: For sure. They line up, they line up really close to each other.

Charlie: And Mac right? Shooting himself in the belly with the insulin. 

Marder: Yup. Mhm.

Meg: Wait. That story, that’s a your dad thing?

Charlie: What was the story about the canned meat?

Marder: My dad uh, was really thrilled by this beef stew that he got at the flea market. And he was digging into it and had a couple of cans of it. And my mom saw how much he enjoyed it. So she opened one up to have for dinner. And then till she turned it around and saw that it was dog food that he had been eating.

*Laughter*

Marder: Which was just like, very him.

Rosell: I feel like the cans of, I guess it was dog food, I didn’t remember it was dog food. I feel like, you know, you see that little meager food section at like an Exxon? Like, that type of food. 

Meg: I didn’t even know you could buy food at a flea market. Who’s ever done that? 

Marder: I mean my father, like, he’ll buy anything at the flea market. 

Charlie: And this is how a story starts. Because like, because then we're like. Okay, great. So like, Frank really wants to get the gang to go down to the flea market because that's where you get the best meat. You know, and then they realize that they’re, then we’d be like. Okay, then maybe they're like, they realize it's dog food. But then they're like, what else does a dog do that I'm missing out on?

Rosell: Some connection with flea market and dog food. There’s some conspiracy there. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Charlie: Some conspiracy.

Marder: I think we can all agree it tastes good. Right? So if we’re willing to look passed who it’s intended for–

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: –I’ll keep eating it. 

*Laughter*

Rosell: What is your dad eating now? Is he, same stuff?

Marder: Same stuff. I mean, my dad's like live action Homer Simpson. He just eats such garbage, like sleeves of Oreos right before bed. Like Mountain Dew all day. He doesn't drink water. He doesn't like the taste of it. All he drinks his soda, which is, he’s 80. I mean, to make it to 80 and all you drink is soda. It’s pretty remarkable.

Rosell: I mean don’t stop now.

Charlie: It’s pretty impressive. Yeah. Don’t stop now. 

Meg: In the room, you showed us a funny picture of your dad in bed like surrounded by, what was that? He was like covered up, like uh–

Marder: He sleeps like a vampire. I do too. So I can't throw stones. 

Rosell: I was not gonna bring it up, but yeah. It’s an interesting–

Marder: He sleeps completely under the covers. You just see the mass of a body underneath.

Rosell: Covers over.

Marder: Fleetwood Mac playing on a–

Rosell: Pillow over face. Covers over pillow. 

Charlie: Pillows, pillow over face?

Marder: I sleep with my head between two pillows like a taco. Cover, cover over me completely in toomed. And now one of my sons does that too. So it's generational. 

Rosell: Oh, he does?

Marder: Yeah. 

Charlie: Wow. So then you feel contained and–

Marder: Hot, hot packed in. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: Like a sardine. 

Charlie: Well, you have 1 story about temping and uh, having a little bit of a stomach issue. 

Marder: Mm.

Rosell: Oh yes. Uh, oh that’s, I love that.

Charlie: Which is one of my favorite. Yeah, we told this story about the, the poor young man who auditioned for the show. And had horrible diarrhea, and then went behind the dumpster to wipe his own butt with his own headshots. 

Rosell: I’ve never heard that story.

Charlie: Yeah. It's his first ever audition and he realizes he's gonna have diarrhea. And someone's in the, in the bathroom, and he can hear them running their lines and it's taking forever. And he goes behind the dumpster and he shits in his pants and he's trying to clean it up with his own headshots. And he gives up and he throws his pants uh, out his window driving home because they smell so bad. And he rear end somebody. Umm-

Rosell: And that man was James Marsden. 

*Laughter*

Charlie: It’s my favorite poop story of all time. 

Rosell: Oh man.

Charlie: Second is your temping story. 

Marder: I was temping at my dad's insurance company in New York. And was wearing a dress shirt that was way too big. Uh, and when I went to use the bathroom, probably after lunch, I didn't realize that once I sat down on the toilet that the shirt was so big that it had created a hammock that completely didn't allow anything to reach the water. 

Charlie: Like a bowl.

Marder: So when I finished pooping, I looked down and saw my dress shirt was just perfectly cradling a shit. Which was a real situation. ‘Cause I was in New York, I live in New Jersey. I didn't have like a different pair of clothing.

Rosell: Well, New York has stores. So you went and bought a new shirt, right?

Marder: That would’ve been the smart thing to do. No, I took off my shirt and was probably just bear chested. Just scrubbing poop out of my shirt and then wore it for the rest of the day.

Charlie: Yeah. I remember you telling me that you took off your shirt, and then you gave up, and you walked shirtless through the office, and you said that you quit. But–

Marder: I didn’t quit, no. 

Charlie: No.

Marder: But I definitely wore it the rest of the day. And probably should’ve been fired. 

Charlie: Uh, okay. 

Meg: Oh my god.

Rosell: That is, that is a great story. 

Charlie: That is a good one.

Meg: Well, I've got some questions for you guys. But um, but just to say a little thing about Scott. Is that um, Scott is responsible for me ending up on the show. 

Marder: That is true.

Meg: ‘Cause I met Scott first, before I met any of you’s. 

Charlie: Really? 

Meg: Yeah. Because um, I hired Scott on to a failed project of mine that I was developing for FX. And he was great. And I believe the first time we met, I cried at our first meeting.

Marder: You did. We were, we met like at a bar or something. I’m like, “Get this girl another drink.” 

Meg: I, I ordered a drink. And then I cried in front of him at our first meeting, because it was a bad development situation. And I was just, but he was so nice about it. And I was like, this is the sort of person that I need, because I needed like a number 2. So I hired uh, I hired Scott on. And then he was great. And um, but the project like died. And then I probably because I spent most of the time talking to you about how much I love Sunny, and how you, you're responsible for most of my favorite episodes, including The gang Gives Frank Intervention, which we just talked about, which is my number one favorite.

Marder: That’s cool. It’s one of my favorites too.

Charlie: Yeah. It’s very strong. 

Meg: It’s the best.

Marder: I just watched it recently.

Charlie: Holds up.

Meg: And that’s where nightcrawlers came in for the first time. 

Marder: Mm.

Meg: Which you guys are responsible for.

Rosell: That’s right.

Charlie: You, you guys were responsible for the lyrics for Dayman. 

Meg: Yeah.

Rosell: Yes. That was the first, one of the first things we ever wrote. And–

Marder: That was the first script we wrote for the show. 

Rosell: It was the first script and I remember the Dayman, we, one of the things that was unique about Sunny was how little you had on break sometimes. Like, sometimes you guys would see it but it wouldn't be, the amount of information that the writer would have would, there’d be a lot less. The flipside to that is that there's a lot of freedom and you could fix things and sort of experiment. It became something I grew to really love. You, you hated it. But uh–

Charlie: You like a more detailed, outlined break.

Marder: I’m a little more anal. 

Rosell: I don’t remember what we had for that. It’s like, they sing, they sing Dayman and then we just wrote the lyrics. Kinda quickly. Assuming we would like, rewrite them or something.

Charlie: Yeah.

Meg: No.

Rosell: And then it just, that remained. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell: And it became this whole thing.

Marder: It came together real quick.

Meg: Where, why “fighter of the Nightman. Champion of the sun.” Where did all that come from? Karate and all that.

Rosell: I don’t know. We just like, wrote it out. It was very short. And then it caught on somehow.

Charlie: Just wrote out “master of karate and friendship.” 

Meg: “For everyone.”

Rosell: Well yeah. I don’t know where that came from.

*Laughter*

Charlie: Yeah.

Meg: Just completely randomly. Um.  Well, I have a list here. Actually, I wanted to go through with you guys, do a sort of lightning round, which I'm going to call, “Are you responsible for this?” Which are things that have been claimed on this podcast, that maybe you guys have, are responsible for. 

Marder: Time to set the record straight. 

Meg: Okay. The melting dog in the alley from Sweet Dee Gets Audit Audited. That one’s you, Rosell?

Rosell: Yes.

Marder: That’s based on your dad story, yeah?

Rosell: Yes, my dad. Uh–

Charlie: Had a melted dog?

Rosell: –he was, he worked with the, for this guy who had a, this big house and all these dogs. And my dad. I won't get into the specifics of his job. It was a real estate thing. But sometimes he'd be over at this house, kind of like helping them with whatever they were doing. And he was watching their dogs while they were away. And one day he went over to feed the dogs and one dog was dead. So he dug a hole and you know, gave the dog a burial. And that, I guess, it had been out in the sun for so long that–

Charlie: Oh my gosh.

Rosell: –he said that when they put the dog, they had to pick the dog up with a bucket. And because it was so–

Marder: Souped up.

Rosell: –it was so soupy and loose from the heat and he poured it in to a hole and it was like pouring in like a like a–

Charlie: Dogs.

Rosell: –noodle soup or something. Yeah, and that uh, that stuck in my brain. 

Charlie: Yeah. Yeah, that would stick with ya.

Marder: I remember you pitched that and everyone's like, “Yes.” 

Charlie: Dog soup in. Dog soup funeral.

Marder: Put it on the board. 

Charlie: Yeah, yeah. Sure. Of course.

Meg: Okay. The Dick Flyer. From Dennis and Dee’s Mom is Dead. 

Rosell: I, I didn’t pitch the Dick Flyer. 

Meg: That it looks like a bicep? That wasn’t you guys?

Marder: We were there for it. I don’t–

Rosell: I remember it being–

Charlie: Uh–

Rosell: –Hornsby wrote the script for that. I don’t remember how–

Marder: I remember definitely being there for that.

Charlie: I feel like–

Marder: I remember us sketching it on paper together. Like uh–

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell: It may have been Hornsby. Or you guys. I would say.

Charlie: Yeah. 

Meg: All right. Night Crawlers. 

Rosell: I don’t remember–

Marder: That feels very much like us.

Charlie: Night Crawlers feels like the 2 of you guys. Yeah.

Marder: Yeah. The–

Meg: Crawl around like worms in the night. 

Marder: Uh-huh. Yeah.

Meg: Um, Frank’s Doop Group. We’ve already established uh–

Charlie: Uh-huh.

Meg: 

Marder: My dad was in a group, my dad’s actual group name was called Vito and The Salutations. 

*Laughter*

Marder: Which he got kicked out of.

Charlie: He got booted out of Vito and The Salutations?

Marder: Yeah. They didn’t think he had the stuff. 

Charlie: Now, did your dad sing as a part of that group?

Marder: He tried. 

Charlie: Wow.

Rosell: I would love to see-

Marder: They have an album. I think you can find their album. 

Charlie: Vito and The Salutations. 

Marder: Yeah.

Rosell: He’s not on it though, right? 

Marder: No.

Charlie: But would they also kinda run the streets in their leather coats?

Marder: He separately was in that sorta squad. There used to be a club called the 123 club. And my dad loved the 123 club. Because you could go in there and you could walk in kick the jukebox and 123 you are in a fight. Which is how he would always say it. “And that was the best part of the 123 club.” 

Charlie: “Kick the jukebox and 123 you’re in a fight.” was not where I was expecting it to go.

Marder: He liked it, yeah. 

Charlie: A singing fight? Because the jukebox was on? Or–

Meg: Yeah. Sharks versus Jets. 

Marder: No, I think like a, throwing into garbage pails alley fight. Yeah. 

Meg: The Rococo Bang, did you guys come up with that? The Gang Dances Their Asses Off. 

Marder: I guarantee Rococo came from us. ‘Cause that’s just like a term–

Rosell: Yes.

Marder: –like a play on a word that we found funny.

Rosell: What’s The Rococo Bang?

Charlie: Dennis does The Rococo Bang with the uh, um, with the woman in The Gang Dances Their Asses Off. 

Meg: Yeah.

Charlie: And then like, drops her, right? He’s like, “Let’s do the rococo bang.”

Marder: That was challenging episode. Dances Their Asses Off. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Meg: From that same episode, Karate snow machine chops it. Which Charlie has attributed to you, to you guys.

Charlie: I think you guys wrote that lyric, that line. I was like, “That is–”

Marder: For sure.

Rosell: That’s some Hornsby.

Meg: Charlie’s really fucked up on the pills. And he’s drooling–

Rosell: That whole writing experience is a fever dream. ‘Cause I remember we were, we didn't have a lot of time. What we had to go on was the Jane Fonda movie They Shoot Horses Don't They. 

*Laughter*

Marder: You know, that classic?

Rosell: And, I think it was Rob who was like we did, we want to do this. That you guys. I think are maybe already in production or something. It was like this, do an episode based on this. 

Marder: And I remember we three watched him like oof. “What are we gonna do here?” 

Rosell: Yeah, it was tough to see. But we ended up staying up like three days and in those little offices. At one point, someone walked into our kitchen and we're like, “Who was that?” It was Lisa Bonet. And, I don’t know where she was going. 

Marder: I remember we were–

Charlie: In that building?

Rosell:  In that building. In the kitchen.

Marder: And I remember we also wrote piece of it at Hornsby’s like original apartment. Where he had that neighbor that would bathe in the garbage pail. 

Rosell: Yes.

Charlie: Oh, I was there for that. So uh, you know, David and I uh, we had these really good friends Sigh and Genevieve. Who lived right next door David. And um, Sigh was at the Williamstown Theatre Festival with David and I. 

Master: Oh, cool.

Charlie: And they have like a little bit of rooftop and on this apartment building in, and on just off of Melrose. And so we're having like dinner out there like, they thinking that they're fancy they will put together a nice dinner for us. They invited David over. Mary Elizabeth and I were there. And we uh, we hear from downstairs like, “Hey, you guys. You won't go for a swim?” And like, and we're like look over the side of the roof. Just like a one storey building. So not like a highrise. And their neighbor is standing in, in his garbage can which is filled with water. He’s just wasted. And he's like, he's like, “Come on. This pool’s great.” Everyone was like, “We're so sorry about him.” And he just had filled his garbage can and sort of, you know as–

Marder: “I can’t believe no one ever thought about this.” 

Charlie: “Can’t believe people aren’t doin’ this.” Anyways.

Marder: I remember that. 

Meg: Uh, in Mac’s Big Break. When they, when Dennis and Dee are having a podcast um, Cricket wanting a rotisserie chicken and getting lemons instead. Is that you guys?

Rosell: Yes.

Marder: That–

Charlie: Definitely you guys. 

Marder: 100%. 100%. 

Charlie: What is it about rotisserie chicken’s? Just the word is funny. 

Rosell: I don’t know. 

Meg: Specific.

Marder: Yeah.

Rosell: Something… I can’t explain it. But I do find it funny.

Charlie: What about milksteak? Was that you guys? Or was it–as I remember, it was like, did someone misshear someone in the room? 

Rosell: No. I think I pitched milksteak.

Charlie: You pitched milksteak?

Rosell: Yes. 

Charlie: That’s fucking funny.

Meg: But why? Where?

Rosell: I mean, now we’re getting into like, we need to dig–

Charlie: We need a therapist for this.

Rosell: –real deep down, why? Yes, why? I don’t know. 

*Laughter*

Marder: I’m so anal that I bet I could find why? I feel like I have everything that we ever did.

Rosell: He has all records.

Charlie: You have all the records?

Meg: Oh, really?

Marder: I’ve held onto everything.

Rosell: Impeccable records.

Charlie: That’s good. For potential lawsuits?

Marder: I have every season labeled by season. With everything that we’ve ever did for everyone.

Charlie: Oh wow. 

Meg: Oh shit. 

Rosell: I will still hit him up once in a blue moon, like, “Do you have this script? Because I have no records.” And–

Marder: Like, you asked me about the Gail the Snail thing. I didn’t remember it. But I was able to access my stuff ‘cause I’m insane.

Meg: Yeah. “Not quite right Robin”, the other uh–

Marder: Yeah. “Not quite right Robin”.

Rosell: “Not quite right Robin”, never made it to the screen.

Charlie: Did you guys pitch Gail the Snail? Was that–

Rosell: I think that was collective brainstorming–

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell: –for that.

Charlie: Sure. 

Meg: Um, how ‘bout the lyrics to the Frank’s Little Beauties song? The “Magic’s in the air.” 

Marder: Probably. That was a fun one. That was a fun one. 

Charlie: Definitely. Because I remember that was based on a, on a real song, right? Wasn’t there a video of a–

Marder: I think there was youtubes we were obsessed with, around that time. 

Rosell: Yeah.

Charlie: Yeah. There was a youtube of some pageant, where–

Rosell: Yes. That’s right. 

Charlie: It was either an adult pageant or a kid pageant. I don’t remember. 

Rosell: I think it was like Miss America or something.

Charlie: Yeah. It was like Miss America. And the guy sang a song about like magic and light. 

Rosell: Yes. 

Marder: That mortician character was really funny. 

Charlie: Oh my god. Like there's, there's certain things to where you just don't know. You're like, uh, you're like, “We're gonna have a mortician and he's gonna do Frank's makeup.” And you just don't know. So you see Danny come out looking like that. Just quite, how funny it's gonna be. Like you just don't know. 

Meg: Okay. So you wrote “Who pooped the bed?” Did you come up with the stuff that they found in the poop? The like, wolf hair and credit cards? 

Marder: Wolf hair is certainly signature Marder Rosell. 

Rosell: I feel like Glenn came up with wolf hair in the room. I barely–

Marder: It’s possible.

Rosell: I remember flashes of things, so–

Marder: Did you bring that idea in? The “Who pooped the bed?” 

Rosell: I think so.

Charlie: I don’t remember the speech. The Artemis speech.

Marder: One of you guys came in like, hot off the press, I feel like. With like, this idea.

Charlie: Might’ve been. 

Meg: Well, we talked about how Charlie wrote out the monologue at the end. Like on the board.

Charlie: Every now and then, like, the interesting things like someone gets inspiration, right? And then just goes on a tear. When some, when that's happening, you sort of stay out of their way. Right? 

Marder: Yeah.

Rosell: For sure.

Charlie: Like, let them go. It happens to everybody. But–

Meg: Well, that brings up the next, possibly most famous monologue from Sunny. Which is, the Pepe Silvia monologue. 

Rosell: Yup. 

Meg: You guys wrote that?

Rosell: We wrote, we definitely wrote the– You guys did a pass at some point. But uh, we wrote it.

Marder: I can’t remember what I pulled Pepe Silvia from, but I pulled it from things I feel like on a board in my bedroom. Similarly, I was like, “Pepe…Silvia.” 

Charlie: Right. I remember–the guys were saying that it was “Silva”. And I was mispronouncing it. 

Rosell: “Silva.” 

Charlie: “Silva.” And I kept saying “Silvia”.

Rosell: *Laughter*

Marder: Which was funnier. 

Meg: *Laughter*

Charlie: I don’t know. Yeah, it’s–

Rosell: “Pepe Silva”.

Charlie: –poor reading on my part. But, uh, and often people will say, “Was he trying to say Pennsylvania?” But that’s not what it was, right? It was just too funny. It was just a funny name.

Rosell: No. Funny name.

Marder: Oh yeah. Yeah. No, it was just a funny name. 

Charlie: Yeah. You guys nailed that monologue. I remember like, just being like, “Oh this is gonna be so fun to do.” And then, part of the success of that to, is what Matt Shakman did from a directing standpoint. Where, he had built these things where the letters were just dropping down constantly. So we had someone on a ladder dropping letters and letters and letters.

Marder: Oh. That scenes so funny, man. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Meg: That’s so funny. Yeah. 

Rosell: He’s a good director. It’s a shame. Does he still work? 

Charlie: Unfortunately he does stuff that nobody really cares about. You know, superheroes and dragons and–

Rosell: Game of Thrones.

Marder: Everything.

Charlie: Game of Thrones. And Marvel. And–

Meg: Um, how ‘bout from The Nightman Cometh, “Boy’s hole” and “Boy’s soul”. We’re you guys responsible?

Charlie: I think that was me. I gotta say. I think that–

Meg: That was you?

Marder: Yeah. I feel like you guys really took off with that one.

Charlie: “Hole” and “Soul”. I was like, “I got this one guys.” 

Rosell: “I’ll take it.” 

Meg: Well, we talked about how um, from The Gang Hits the Road. The whole thing about Charlie having never eaten a pear, was based on um, Marder never eating blueberries or something? 

Marder: I never had any fruit. I'd never had any fruit and I never had any candy bar growing up. So that season, lunch every day the treatment–

Rosell: How did you not have a candy bar?

Marder: I just didn't have a sweet tooth. My parents eat everything. They eat tons of sweets.

Rosell: So you were allowed to eat them. You were just like, “No. I don’t want one.”

Marder: “No thanks.” All I ate was salad. 

*Laughter*

Marder: I’m a strange person.

Charlie: That is so weird.

Marder: I’m a strange person.

Charlie: Now wait a second. Have you since had a blueberry? And–

Marder: I have had a blueberry. 

Charlie: And what’d you think?

Marder: I’d say there’s–I like ‘em. 

Charlie: Yeah. *Laughter*

*AD BREAK*

Charlie: Hey Megan, guess what? This show is sponsored by Betterhelp. 

Meg: Oh. Betterhelp is online therapy service designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule.

Charlie: Yeah. That's right. It's so easy to get uh, caught up in what everyone else needs from you that it's easy to forget what you need for yourself, right? 

Meg: Yeah, very true. Betterhelp’s licensed professionals can give you the tools to find that balance so that you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind.

Charlie: Therapy’s for everyone. Right? So if you’re on the fence about trying it, you know, now’s the time. Give it a whirl.

Meg: Yeah. Even Tony Soprano. He went to therapy.

Charlie: He did. He turned out great. 

Meg: *Laughter*

Charlie: Yeah. Tony Soprano went fellas. So there’s no excuses here. 

Meg: Yeah. Men would literally rather watch other men go to therapy then go themselves sometimes.

Charlie: Yeah, but, you know, if the head of a mafia family can find and–I’m sure is a very busy schedule, uh, you at home probably can do it too. Right?

Meg: What do you think would’ve happened if Tony Soprano had Betterhelp?

Charlie: Well uh, you know. It, it would’ve been easier for him to find time in his busy schedule for one. He probably would’ve saved a little bit of dough. Uh, that’s good. Number 2, and then he might’ve just like, chilled out a little bit. And you know, maybe picked a different direction for his life. Which could’ve been good. 

Meg: Not good for the show though. Would’ve been much more boring of a show.

Charlie: Yeah. More boring show. But a better life for him.

Meg: Yeah.

Charlie: Look, everyone could find help with Betterhelp. That’s the point, right?

Meg: Visit Betterhelp.com/sunny, for 10% off your first month. 

Charlie: That’s Betterhelp h-e-l-p.com/sunny. 

*AD BREAK OVER*

Meg: This year was really fun, uh, to be in the room with the both of you. And to see your little like corks. Like, truly, Marder just paces the entire time. You’re like, laying on the floor. This year you got into a whole thing. Where you were creating Telemundo shows for David to star in. Do you remember that?

Rosell: Yes. I was drawing things in with, starring David Hornsby. Uh–

Meg: Different Telemundo shows that were all in spanish. 

Rosell: I think I work the best if I’m not working on what I’m supposed to be working on. And then I’ll be able to like, pitch more things. I don’t know.

Charlie: Really? Yeah. If you’re, if you’re thinking about something completely different?

Rosell: To try to like low level distract myself. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell: It’s all–there’s a method to all of it.

Meg: Sure.

Rosell: Very thought out.

Charlie: Now. So okay, it's that, that first season. You guys wrote with us. We're out in Playa Del Rey. We get through it. Uh, all comes together. You're happy with What happens and then we call you up and we say, “Hey, good news. We got picked up for another season.” 

Rosell: I remember the–

Charlie: ‘Cause we were probably season by season at that point. 

Rosell: The first feedback that I had gotten uh, that made me relax a little bit. I didn’t, I didn’t tell you about it. Uh, was McElhenney called me–I remember I was in H&M buying like, Christmas presents.  And we had just handed in our first script like a week before. And McElhenney called me to say how much you guys had loved it. And I remember a big weight being lifted. That was, that was sort of a pivotal moment in the emotional trajectory. And then we just started writing. We wrote a lot of the episodes in season 3 and clearly–

Marder: I feel like we wrote 5.

Rosell: –We got, we had a good thing going on creatively, all of us. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell:So I, we worked on another show in between the first season, or the third season and the fourth season.

Charlie: Really?

Rosell:  Cavemen show.

Charlie: Oh yeah.

Marder: Based on the Geico cavemen.

Meg: Oh, that’s right. 

Rosell: One of the worst shows of all time, on television. 

Meg: Well–

Marder: Based off of the ads. But then, a call came down from the president of ABC, like early into pre production. Being like, “It can't be anything like the commercials.” Which was a weird, a weird thing to come with. Like, “Huh. That’s gonna be–”

Charlie: “Based on the commercials but make sure you don’t reference them at all.”

Rosell: “So no cavemen?” “No! Keep the cavemen.”

Charlie: *Laughter* 

Rosell: All right.

Charlie: Okay. So then uh, so we finished that third season. You guys go to the Cavemen? 

Rosell: Yes. 

Charlie: You get staffed on caveman.

Rosell: Yes.

Marder: And that comes, that comes out with the writers strike too.

Rosell: And then the writers strike.

Charlie: And then there was a strike. 

Rosell: Yeah.

Charlie: What was the experience going from Sunny to Cavemen? Like, from a–our warehouse in a, off a shadey road. To, back to a network thing?

Rosell: I mean, I don't think any part of–I–no part of me liked anything better about being on Cavemen than Sunny. And like, even though it was, I don't know, it was on the Sony Lot and at that offices and whatnot. We had such a good thing going on at Sunny. I was just itching to get back

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: We just needed to make money.

Rosell: I just remember, just it being hard to write other stuff. Because I just, I felt like I wanted to write more Sunny because we really got in the groove. So–

Marder: We met Love Rockey there. 

Rosell: Exactly. 

Charlie: Right.

Marder: He joined, he joined us because we met him at Cavemen. 

Charlie: You brought him in the fourth season? He came in season four?

Marder:  I want to say he came in five.

Charlie: Season five. 

Rosell: Season five, I think. Yeah. That’s right. We did meet Love.

Charlie: Another great influential Sunny writer. 

Marder: Yeah.

Charlie: Um, I have found that, for my two cents. The most rewarding part of this business, this career, is getting a group of people that you click with creatively, and making something in a bubble, sort of outside the results of it outside the– Obviously, it's very nice when it reaches people, and, and, and people have a nice reaction to it. But for, that's completely out of our control. So the best part of the experience for me is finding something that we're all dug in on, that we don't know how to do it. So the early seasons of Sunny, where we don't know what even an episode of Sunny really is still. Is the most rewarding part of, of this experience. I am sad, we can't ever go back to that place with this show. 

Rosell: I know. I agree. 

Charlie: That we can’t ever just be like–

Marder: In a little bubble?

Charlie: In a little bubble.

Marder: ‘Cause we were just making ourselves laugh. Like nothing was more rewarding than like we'd be cracking ourselves up, and then it would hit the airwaves. And people would feel the same. Like, what's more, what's a better gift than that? I mean, it’s awesome.

Charlie: Yeah. And we can do a different thing. And it's still, and having you guys there this year was great. And I think the episodes are really good this year as a result, but um, never that, we can never be as lost as we were. And there's something really amazing about that. So even going into season four, we still don't totally know like what an episode of the show is. Uh. But now we're in a different warehouse. We're in Culver City. So we’ve moved a little more–

Rosell: We moved warehouses.

Charlie: It was a slightly nicer warehouse. But still pretty crappy. Now we’re a team, right? Now we’re like. All right. We did this thing. We’re feeling good about. It was a good season.

Rosell: Had some new writers. 

Charlie: Had some new writers. 

Marder: Well, I think, a funny thing in season four was that you guys felt like Rob and I worked out so well, that when we came back for season four, there were three other writing teams. You guys like, “This writing team thing is where it's at.” So it was the biggest room the show had ever had. We came back and it was like Jordan and Elijah Becky and Audra. Patton Sonny. Like the room was huge. 

Charlie: I forgot–

Marder: ‘Cause you got, because, because you guys were like “Writing, writing teams. That's the bang for the buck.”

Charlie: I forgot Sonny Lee and Pat Walsh were a team. 

Marder: Oh yeah.

Meg: Yeah.

Rosell: Yes. That’s right.

Charlie: And they were a good team. They were funny.

Marder: That season had that super funny thing with Pat. With a–he was pitching something and–I don’t, did you do it? 

Rosell: I did it.

Marder: He was wearing a hoodie and he was pitching something. And Rosell just reached over and unzipped the hoodie. And we saw that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was just wearing a hoodie and he was suddenly bare chested. Just completely deflated the pitch. And everyone’s like, “Who wears just a hoodie, man?” 

Rosell: Not unlike Glenn with the cereal in the car. Dug in that there was nothing weird about wearing a zip up hoodie with nothing underneath it.

Charlie: Maybe he crapped in the shirt and he threw it away.

*Laughter*

Marder: Maybe, right. Oh man.

Charlie: He had to–

Rosell: Could be, could be.

Charlie: Yeah. 

Marder: No but that was, to do that in a room, a writers room.

Charlie: Dug in on sweatshirt no t-shirt. 

Rosell: Dug in on the, “why is this weird?” It just is. You don’t wear a zipper with no fabric underneath it. 

Meg: Yeah.

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: That derailed the room for like an hour. 

*Laughter*

Marder: Like, you came to a writers room. We’re not a nice crowd. Like, you know–

Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marder: –do something off kilt you’re gonna get picked apart. 

Charlie: I think, something that is important for the audience to know is that, it's such a group effort writing a television series that, you know. Just because you guys are credited for certain episodes, doesn't mean you're not writing on all the episodes.

Meg: Mhm.

Rosell: And it doesn’t mean we wrote the episode we were credited for.

Charlie: *Laughter*

Marder: I lose track, like I could, I have good memories of writing the ones we like, really had to dig in on ‘em. But like, a lot of the other ones are cloudy. ‘Cause, I remember bits and pieces of us in all of them. You know?

Rosell: Absolutely.

Charlie: Yeah. The more people that you have in the room that are really contributing, the better the show becomes. Because, I think around that, season four, season five, season six, we had a really–

Marder: We were sync.

Charlie: –everyone was in sync. And different people were providing different sort of perspectives that we're all sort of gelling into the show. And, you know, the differences I think, was for us, for who sort of stayed. How much someone contributes. And then how much they're sort of stamp goes on the show. And um, and then their ability to execute something if we're not there. You know, which you guys and Hornsby really had down. Meg you, when you came on, you know, you had that talent as well. Or could run the room, or sort of push story forward.

Meg: Yeah. I was jealous though, because of these guys. ‘Cause um, Rob you, he talks about you guys like, “The funniest people that I've ever worked..” you know. Or, “The best writers I've ever worked with.” And I'm always sitting there like, “Well, I guess. Fine.” But it is, like, specifically, I think what's so amazing is you guys just. like I would never in a million years be able to think of like, boiled denims you know.

Charlie: Boiled denims I know are you guys. 

Marder: Yeah.

Meg: It’s just a weird particular thing, that is just like, like uh–or Charlie’s dreams. I think maybe you guys did that. With the denim chickens.

Marder: Oh yeah.

Meg: And like the weird–​​like I can't think that way, my brain. 

Rosell: That was one of the weird ones.

Marder: King of the rats. That was a weird one, yeah.

Meg: Yeah, my brain will not, did you guys come up with, “Can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?” 

Charlie: 100%.

Rosell: Yes.

Marder: Yeah.

Charlie: “An egg in this trying time” is definitely you guys. 

Meg: “I’ve been poisoned by my constituents.” Like, that whole like the, the specificity of stuff like that, I just like uh, yeah. Mine is, my contributions is mostly good handwriting for the dry erase board.

Charlie: No, no.

Rosell: This is not true at all. 

Charlie: No. Everyone, everyone brings a different thing, right?

Rosell: Absolutely.

Charlie: Like uh–

Marder: Whatever season we brought Megan on I feel like we–I feel like that season actually started and we didn’t bring anyone new on. And we felt like we needed to shake it up. So everyone’s like, “Who do you got?” And I was like, “Ganz. We gotta get her over.” 

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: I feel like that particular season we didn’t even read specs. We, maybe–

Meg: No. I didn’t submit.

Marder: I feel like you came and–

Meg: I met with you and Hornsby. 

Marder: Okay. ‘Cause I was like, “We should just get her in here.” 

Meg: Yeah.

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: But, but, but that season worked out great. Like, that, that influx of energy, like–

Charlie: Yeah, that was a great season.

Marder: Yeah. 

Charlie: Um, yeah. It’s, the better the energy is in that room, the better the season is. It’s no doubt about it.

Rosell: Season five was certainly at a high water mark of just us all being–

Marder: Feeling confident in what we were doing, yeah. 

Rosell: Yeah. In a flow. And everybody riffing and pitching.

Charlie: We had sort of figured out what makes the show work. Uh, but didn’t know it so well that you know, we were boxed into structure.

Rosell: Yeah.

Charlie: Or anything.

Meg: One of the episodes uh, that you wrote in season five was The Dennis System. 

Charlie: Oh yeah.

Meg: Which is such an amazing one.

Rosell: Also one of my favorites. 

Meg: Yeah. It was just, how did–do you remember like how that came up? And how like–that he had a system? And–

Rosell: I, it was off of that book The Game being a thing at the time.

Charlie: Oh, right.

Meg: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Marder: Which our roommate was obsessed with. 

Rosell: Yeah. That’s a whole other podcast. 

*Laughter*

Charlie: Wait, so you had a roommate who was obsessed with The Game. 

Rosell: Learning The Game. Trying–

Charlie: The Game is like–

Marder: Study it like a, studying it like he would, you would read an automotive manual.

Charlie: Methods for picking up women.

Rosell: Yes. For tricking women into–

Charlie: Negging was a big thing. Like, you go and you insult a woman. 

Marder: Yeah. “Hey. Your breath stinks.” 

Charlie: Peacocking was a thing. 

Meg: Yeah.

Rosell: Yes.

Charlie: Like you wear a ridiculous purple hat.

Meg: I have to say. I was living in New York and heavily dating during this time. And had the effect of The Game. Presented upon me.

Marder: I feel bad.

Meg: Peacocking, specifically.

Marder: My buddy would wear a tie like a bandana. Like a–

Meg: It was just–

Marder: just wear a tie on his head.

Rosell: Did The Game work on you?

Meg: Never. ‘Cause it was just awkward and it was like, oh–yeah. Go for it.

Charlie: Keep going.

Meg: It was um, it was always awkward–he’s negging me right now by using the bathroom.

Rosell: This is a good, Charlie, this is really good use of The Game.

Meg: *Laughter* Did it ever work for your friend? Did he ever bring home women, like confused and uh, you don’t wanna get into it?

Rosell: No. Nothing nefarious. Uh, I don’t think it, it worked for him. When you’re so clearly adhering to a system that could be a–

Meg: Yeah.

Rosell: –offputing to a woman. Now I feel like she’s pray.

Marder: You don’t like, you don’t like being asked like, “Hey. Floss or no floss?” You don’t like being asked that as an opening salvo, conversation at a bar?

Meg: Yeah. Just so odd. And uh, but so you were like, “Oh, well, what if someone had a very specific–”

Rosell: That was like kind of–we kinda started talking about that in season four. I remember, and it may have even gotten written on the board where we–

Marder: I definitely remember it being written on the board.

Rosell:  Room riffing. Kinda like, “Hh, this could be a thing, the Dennis system, what would that be?” And the putting the letters up. I think we had–

Marder: We had what it meant. And that held.

Rosell: What’s the, what is it, an acronym?

Meg:  Yeah, an acronym. 

Rosell: An acronym.

Marder: I feel like we had that acronym the previous season. And then we finally wrote it the following. 

Rosell: Yes. We didn’t do it for whatever reason. And then we explored it the next season and it just came together. In that one, yeah.

Meg: It’s just such a great episode. And um, that started also, Mantis Toboggan. 

Rosell: Mantis Toboggan. Yes.

Charlie: Mantis Toboggan.

Meg: And uh, that “magnum condoms for my monster dong.”

Rosell: Gladys made it back in that episode. She was such a find.

Meg: That’s right.

Charlie: Gladys came back for that one.

Rosell: Yes.

Meg: Yeah. 

Rosell: Uh, RIP Gladys. 

Meg: And uh, what other ones? Oh, The Gang Wrestles for the Troops. Was in that episode. Did you–

Charlie: And jean shorts. Like the jean shorts–

Rosell: We had a weird thing with–

Marder: The guys who did the splits. 

Rosell: –jean shorts. 

Meg: *Laughter*

Rosell: That became like a, something that was referenced often.

Charlie: We had a jean short obsession.

Rosell: Yes. Weird uses of jean shorts.

Charlie: I still find them fascinating. Like, saw a guy the other day, biking down the street in those like jean shorts that get like, stop at the knee. And thinking, “What an uncomfortable short to go for a bike ride in.”

Rosell: Why not wear another short? Like, wear a different–don’t wear regular shorts. Like, the jean shorts, they kinda look funny. And they’re not really comfortable. And they’re hotter than normal shorts.

Charlie: Yeah. 

Marder: It was, like we jammed a lot in that one.

Rosell: Yeah. 

Charlie: That’s right. Desser Rose.

Rosell: Oh, yes. 

Charlie: Um–

Meg: Birds of War in that one as well. The Birds of War song. 

Charlie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Birds of War. I remember you guys pitching though a “bucket of chestnuts” and being like, that's so funny. He's got chestnuts. And then, and then as being like, trying to decide like, how did he get, is he foraging for them? You know. And then something that Roddy, Roddy did in that episode, I remember trying to pitch him on the day was uh, the drifting off when we asked him if he's got kids.

Rosell: Oh, yeah.

Charlie: And he stops and he drifts off and he looks at his face he goes, “Nah. Not no more.”

Da’ Maniac: Guys like you, you know, uh, I love you guys, right? You know, you remind me of my kids. 

Dennis: Oh, you got kids Maniac?

Da’ Maniac: Nah. Not anymore.

Dennis: What does that mean? 

Meg: Well that, so The Gang Wrestles Troops has lots of big ideas. But some of my favorite Sunny episodes are like really small ideas. Like, Mac and Dennis break up. Which is such a like, simple, small story um, about them feeling like they've gotten into a rut and they need to go. But also is coupled with the “cat in the wall story”. Does that come from you guys? Do you remember where that idea came from? 

Rosell: I think you may have pitched the “cat in the wall” in the room.

Charlie: Uh.

Rosell: I don’t know. 

Charlie: I don’t recall. Who came up with, “Smoke some cigarettes. They’ll snuff out the, the–”

Meg: The apple seeds or whatever.

Rosell: I think I did.

Charlie: Yeah. 

Meg: Not being allowed to eat the skins.

Rosell: Cigarettes are another running thing.

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell: Like, weird use of some cigarettes. That episode I love. And like, you guys are such great actors together. And when, sometimes we get out of the way and just let it be a small scene. And we’re, I find we would often be striving for things like that. But, the reality is like, you just can’t do too many of them.

Charlie: You need both, right?

Rosell: Yeah.

Charlie: You need to wrestle for the troops. And then you need, those guys trying to get me on a dating website. 

Rosell: Yeah.

Meg: Yeah.

Charlie: And if it’s all one or the other, the show gets dull. I mean, that’s the other thing. You’re always trying to surprise the audience right. The, so much of comedy is just dropping something that nobody expects. And that’s what’s so great about you guys. Is, your sort of idiosyncratic sense of humor that’s so unpredictable. And these terms and ideas you’ve thought up that no one’s thought up before. Like, things like milksteak. Like what is that? Uh, but then that balance, finding that balance and then trying to maintain it throughout a season is so hard.

Marder: Definitely tricky. I mean, what I loved about this show was it felt like it was always doing things that you couldn't do on other things. So when someone would throw out the idea of like a baby funeral, I’m like “We have to strive for a baby funeral.”

Charlie: Yeah, yeah.

Marder: Like, ‘cause you're not gonna see that on anything else. But we have the ability to do that. So we gotta try to stick.

Charlie: You learn that sweet spot too. Of like, coming from, starting at a time where television was pretty controlled by, you know, network television. Where you only are allowed to do a certain type of humor, because we're trying to reach the broadest audience possible. 

Marder: Oh yeah. Yeah. 

Charlie: Now there's so much television, there's so much–

Rosell: Content.

Charlie: –content that, you know, it makes Sunny less unique in that regard. Of like, the extremes that we were going to. But at the time, you know, we were kind of really getting away with something that a lot of shows weren't.

Rosell: That was the craziest thing. Now that you say that up about Sunny. And you asked like, kind of the difference between rooms. It was shocking how little constrictions we had other than are, the ones that we wanted to put on ourselves. And that we could really come whatever we kind of came up with could be on television. And that, that was so unique. 

Marder: It was, yeah. ‘Cause it was very cool about you guys, that like we could write something I could make it to air. Because like 99% of most shows get rewritten a million times over from the writers draft, to blah, blah, blah. But if you guys found something funny, you let it live, which was cool. 

Rosell: I’m always amazed at stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t work. And it's just not what you think. You kind of, you have to just it's a process that is continually evolving. So the idea that there's like finite answers at the early stage of it as just the script before it's performed, and blah, blah, blah.

Marder: Yeah. A great script isn’t a guaranteed great episode. 

Rosell: Yeah.

Meg: Yeah.

Marder: And vice versa.

Charlie: Well, but it’s a good start. It’s how you know.

Marder: It’s a hell of a good start. 

Charlie: Yeah. I mean, it’s so much harder to make a bad script, you know, work. And then clean it up in the editing room. Versus something that on the page, beginning to end is really singing and you're like, “Ah, this one just came together.” But you're right. It's very unpredictable what is and isn't a good script of Sunny, specifically. I can't, I'm not speaking to other shows. I can't speak to that. But of Sunny. When you write something you're like, “Well, it just, it seems like this one should work.” And then you get in the editing room and you're like, “We got to, we got to come up with something to fix this one.”

Rosell: Yeah. Or like, this storyline doesn’t work. 

Charlie: Uh-huh.

Rosell: And we have to take that out of the episode now. Or like, things get tangled a different way.

Charlie: And sometimes it’s, it’s, it’s um, you know. The way somethings been filmed. Sometimes it's, it's the music we've chosen. Um, a good example was two episodes that just did not work at all until the editing room were um, The Suburbs episode. And, and The Gang Dines out.  Which we had to just come up with–

Marder: Two great ones. 

Charlie: Yeah, different musical sort of theme. The Suburbs one we went sort of with the shining and played it dark, versus what was originally in there, which was like Sunny music sort of transitioning. And it just didn't work at all. And then um, and same with the sort of Italian theme that we have playing in that, for whatever reason.

Meg: Yeah. Gives it like a Godfather feel or something. I don’t know.

Charlie: Gives it a Godfather feel. It needed that. So it’s, yeah. The whole process, beginning to end is pretty crazy.

*AD BREAK*

Charlie: Hey it’s Vuori! 

Meg: Today’s podcast is Vuori. A new perspective on performance apparel, inspired by the active costal California lifestyle.

Charlie: I love, I love, love, love, love Vuori. It's amazing. I do have a question.

Meg: Oh. Maybe your question is about how they’re so well made and flattering. Yet comfortable. So you wanna change out of whatever you’re wearing right then. And then straight into the Vuori.

Charlie: Oh no. I’m not unclear about that. That’s all perfectly clear to me. And now that you are reminding me, I’m going to change into my Vuori as soon as this podcast is over. And get a little more comfortable.

Meg: Um. Maybe your questions about how they’re offsetting 100% of their carbon footprint and 100% of their plastic footprint, from 2019 and beyond?

Charlie: No. Uh, I was not wondering about that. But is that for real? ‘Cause now I am. That’s, that’s amazing.

Meg: Yeah. So what was your question then?

Charlie: Why is it pronounced Vuori? Yeah, ‘cause like, look at the letters. Like, where–Vuori? I’m not seeing an E in there or, at all. You know. I’m seeing lots of other vowel, but so where are they getting the E sound? There’s a V-U.

Meg: Yeah. Apparently it means a mountain in Finnish. 

Charlie: You’re finished? Um–

Meg: *Laughter* Well, Vuori is and investment in your happiness. For our listeners they’re offering 20% off your first purchase. So get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet. At Vuori.com/sunnypod. That’s V-U-O-R-I.com/sunnypod.

Charlie: Yeah. Not only are you gonna receive 20% off with your first purchase, but you’re gonna enjoy free shipping on any US orders over 75 bucks. And uh, free returns. So uh, go to Vuori.com/sunnypod. And discover the versatility of Vuori clothing. You’re gonna like it. 

*AD BREAK OVER*

Charlie: So now, now you guys are off. Working on other shows. You just came off of Dave. 

Rosell: Yes. Just came off of Dave.

Meg: You were like, doing Dave at the same time as Sunny.

Rosell: Yeah. It got a bit crazy. The schedule–

Charlie: Yeah. You were doing Sunny and Dave at the same time.

Rosell: Yes. No one seemed to consider that on the other end of conversations I wasn’t apart of. That, maybe there could be some communication. It’s the same network. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell: Shout out to FX. Love FX. Wouldn’t work anywhere else.

Charlie: Yeah, yeah. You’ve been doing Rick and Morty for how many seasons now? 

Marder: I’ve been on it since middle of season four, and we’re writing season nine right now. 

Charlie: Jeez.

Marder: Yeah. I’ve been running it the last five seasons or so, yeah.

Meg: I, when I heard you were going over there I was like, “Oh. That’s good.” ‘Cause you’re just so like, even keel. 

Marder: I’ve been called human xanax before.

Meg: Yes.

Charlie: *Laughter*

Marder: It’s worked out. I’m the whisperer.

Charlie: Well, you know what’s so funny? I always forget this about you. Because I see, I run into you. Your initial kind of like gear, is you're like, you're, you're in speed one. And you're very calm and–

Rosell: Steady. 

Charlie: –steady and reserved. But unlike most people in cars, that go up to like, five, you have like an 11. And every now and then we start to unleash it and ramp you up. And when you get going, man–

Rosell: Oh, yeah.

Charlie: I feel like I had to pull you out of a refrigerator at a convenience store. 

Marder: Like because I tried to climb into the back. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: Like freezer section. I tried to climb through where the beer–

Charlie: Yeah, yeah. You got like stuck under and we had to like pull your legs out.

Rosell: He has a, there’s a switch. 

Marder: Once the switch has been flipped, I’m capable of anything. 

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: Which is exciting.

Charlie: Yeah. Well. 

Marder: He doesn’t come out as often as he used to, ‘cause I’m a dad now. And uh, I need to be more–

Rosell: Shoutout to Griffin and Reghan. 

Charlie: But, but it comes out in the writers room too, when the idea gets cooking, right? 

 Marder: Oh, yeah.

Charlie: So like so we're talking and you're and you're very analytical and you're talking about it, and then you stumble on something. And then we start pitching something. 

Rosell: I’m like, under a chair, somewhere.

Charlie: And you start getting excited. And then you just become unleashed, which is–

Marder: I think we've piled a lot of life in. I think we've got a ton of stories from you know, our 20s and 30s that just we’re able to pull from I feel like done a lot.

Charlie: Do you guys ever feel like I feel like this sometimes I'm like, “I need to stop working and do some more living.” So I have some more–

Meg: Yes.

Rosell: Maybe everyday I have that thought.

Meg: I think about that all the time.

Rosell: As I’m writing a document. 

Charlie: From a writers perspective, it’s sort of–

Marder: Yeah. I don’t know what I’m writing from. 

Rosell: That is the hardest, one of the hardest things of our very difficult jobs as writers in Hollywood. Shout out to writers. Just the yeah. Once you find uh, some success and are able to be working, it can be all consuming and you aren't. There's no, it's all output and no input. 

Charlie: Yeah. It’s so much output. And you need to–

Meg: Well, if we strike, let’s go out and live guys.

Charlie: Yeah.

Meg: And then we can bring it all back to the room.

Rosell: Yeah. It’s symmetry to this.

Marder: In 2007 when we struck, I tried to get construction jobs. ‘Cause I just wanted to be with people that I wasn’t working with. And they we’re like, “No.” Flattly rejected.

Charlie: “Sir, this is a career. We know what we’re doing. You can’t just walk in and try to start–”

Marder: “You’re gonna die out here.” 

Rosell: “What’s final draft?” 

Marder: I ended up getting a job at a, at a shit pill place. Like a place that sold colon cleanses. 

Charlie: Ah, great.

Rosell: Was Glenn ordering anything from you?

Charlie: “We don’t care what your experience is.” 

Rosell: I worked at a sign manufacturing shop. And then I worked at a newspaper in Santa Monica. 

Meg: That you were telling us during the strike you were a, you were a restaurant reviewer at the time.

Rosell: A restaurant reviewer, yes.

Charlie: Oh sure. I remember that, yeah.

Rosell: I wrote one review.

Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Marder: I remember you used to call a restaurant from Sunny, you used to call La Dijonaise. And you had asked them what their soup of the day was. Which they would get. And then you would ask them what their smell of the day was. And the person would lose their minds. ‘Cause you would do it everyday to them.

*Laughter*

Marder: And then they’d be like, “God damnit.”

Charlie: “There is no smell of the day.”

Marder: “He got me again!” Like, you’d just hear that–

Charlie: “Don’t call here anymore!” 

Marder: “And your…smell of the day?” “Ahhh!” You’d hear the person go crazy. 

Charlie: Any final thoughts? Any parting thoughts? When we, when we began doing this show, what kind of cell phone did you guys have? Was it flip phone?

Rosell: A Nokia.

Charlie: A Nokia flip phone? 

Rosell: A Nokia brick phone. 

Marder: Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to think, definitely Nokia.

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: I, we had to, him and I bought cellphones. He was in LA before I was and I landed and neither of us had cell phones. And we couldn't find each other at the airport.

Rosell: Yeah. It’s a real moment. 

Marder: And I, I don’t remember why. But I feel like I got bussed out into a, to like a–

Rosell: I don’t even know how I found you.

Marder: I got bussed out into a distant parking lot. That you came off a bus. And everyone was calling you turtle. Or a madeup name you had. We couldn’t find each other for like, 2 hours. 

Charlie: “Are you with turtle?” 

Marder: It was terrible. And then, the first place we went was to get cellphones. ‘Cause like, we’re like, “Never again. That sucked.” Like not being able to find each other.

Charlie: Yeah. “We should buy one of these cellular telephones.”

Rosell: Right to uh, Singular.

Marder: Went to Singular wireless.

Rosell: Got those Nokias. 

Marder: That juggernaut.

Charlie: “Let’s go to the T-Mobile store.” Have Rob and I, and Glenn changed a lot? Is it different?

Meg: Oh, that’s a great question.

Rosell: I mean uh–

Marder: Rob still drives that pickup truck. 

Rosell: Rob has…yeah. There's been a lot of changes. I would say you have changed the least by far. Everyone remains the same person and the same person you're talking to, so that's great. Rob is, you know he's gotten into science. He's, he's gotten into companies. Glenn is on the forefront of nutrition.

Marder: Yeah. He’s man of many interests.

Charlie: And I still just wanna tell good jokes. I just want, I just wanna–

Rosell: You’re a simple man. 

Charlie: I’m a simple man.

Rosell: You show up. You wanna make ‘em laugh. And go home.

Charlie: I wanna make ‘em laugh. I might wanna play a little golf. 

Rosell: Yeah. Exactly.

Charlie: I just wanna make a good episode of TV.

Rosell: Have we changed? 

Charlie: No. Not at, not at all. You’re just older.

Marder: Little grayer.

Charlie: But–little grayer. 

Rosell: Little grayer. 

Charlie: But uh, you’ve only changed in so far, that I don’t get to see you guys as much as I’d like to.

Marder: Yeah. Bums me out.

Charlie: Which, yeah.

Rosell: Let’s end on, kind of a, lementful note. 

Charlie: Yeah. Let’s go find a little dive bar and you know, just go nuts. Well, we got the kids.

Rosell: It is–not to make it like too, squishy right now. But I, that’s like the thing that I miss the most. Is the time that we all used to spend together. 

Charlie: Well this is my point about, which is that, what's so exciting about doing, and what we got to do was that it was time well spent just making a thing. We didn't have the kids. So maybe there was a little like, time on the side where we could kind of do around, but just kind of lost in the weeds and, and, and trying to come up with something and hoping, you know, people respond to it. And–

Rosell: Not even really knowing how–speaking for myself, not knowing how I wrote yet. And like, how do–what are my tendencies.

Marder: Yeah. We were thrown into the trenches. I mean, you know–

Charlie: Yeah. Same.

Marder: –we went into the deep end.

Rosell: Largely informed by, you know, a lot of the–your sensibilities. 

Charlie: And back, back at you. I mean, you, I think you guys changed the way I looked at writing too. And saw, “Oh you know, there's, I can go even further into sort of things that might appeal to me, but, you know, don't exist out in the world, and that people will connect with it.”

Rosell: Charlie is the fastest script writer I’ve ever seen.

Marder: I was gonna say the same thing too.

Meg: Oh I know. It’s insane.

Marder: I think the show succeeded out of the early gates, ‘cause you and Rob had a special sauce that I don’t think you guys realized you had. 

Meg: Yeah.

Marder: And that, both you could go off and write an excellent scripts like, as fast as anyone that I’ve worked with. And we’ve worked for a while now.

Meg: Yeah.

Marder: Like, uh–

Rosell: Really uh, weighs on me. How fast you guys write sometimes.

Meg: I know. Me too.

Charlie: *Laughter* Well, I mean. I think there's just, you know, because it's falling on our shoulders–

Rosell: Mhm.

Charlie: – there's no time to waste. Like if we don't get the scripts in, there's no one to blame except us. Right. So I think we just developed a skill to be like, well just gotta pick an idea and go with it. Because there's, time is ticking. For me the speed has a lot to do with um, trying to get out of, out of my head. So–

Marder: Yeah. You’re great at stream of consciousness.

Charlie: –trying to get into that stream of consciousness. Trying to tap into that, you know, I don't know where it's coming from, get into a flow. And just honestly, start just talking as the characters. 

Marder: Yeah. 

Charlie: And that talking. Just be like, “Okay, they're having a conversation. They're saying this that and the other thing.” And no me in it. Like, what are the characters saying? How do you guys feel about those sorts of writing books and structures and models? Are you like, “Well, I think it's good and really useful. And you should do it.” or you're like, “I think it's bologna.” 

Rosell: I think it, for me, just speaking personally. It was good to read them and sort of see different ways that people are thinking about it. And, but then sort of leaving it behind as not using it as like, a manual for like, “No, it has to go like this.” It's just–

Marder: I'm a story nerd. So I'm into all different types. Like, it was awesome being at Sunny forever, and just kind of being able to go for broke and not being really confined. And then we slid over to network with The Mick, and that was way more you know, by the book and Rick and Morty works on the story circle, which is Dan Harmon’s thing. And that's, it's an awesome cheat sheet. I mean, that's the only way that show goes. And it's been fun in my career just to keep changing it up in different ways.

Charlie: Yeah. Like some structure is really invaluable in terms of just getting the work done. Right? With Sunny we know usually, it’s 12 scenes. So just–

Marder: Right. There’s always standards. 

Charlie: Yeah. Numbers 1 through 12.

Rosell: Yeah.

Charlie: If we have that, we have an episode. Right? I’ve heard uh, David Lynch saying like. He’s like, “If you wanna write a movie, you know, get notecards write 90 or…70 scenes. You know, each card is a scene. Then fill those cards out with what the scene is. Then you got a movie.” 

*Laughter*

Charlie: But to some extent it’s true. You know, like–

Marder: “Then drop all the cards. Re-shuffle them in an order that doesn’t make sense to even yourself.”

Charlie: Yeah.

Marder: “Shoot it in that order, and the fans will call it Mulholland Drive.”

Rosell: Make something indecyphrable to an audience. 

Meg: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Charlie: It’s like, “Get those cards lost in the wind. Then make your movie.”

Rosell: I still don’t feel like I know how to break a story. And, that’s disappointing.

Meg: You do. 

Rosell: I know that I do, but I feel like I don’t.

Meg: It’s–what I like about it is like, ‘cause I’m a story nerd as well. And it puts names on what is actually instinctual. Like, a story feels like it's done when it feels satisfying. And that's like an instinct that you have. But, knowing why it feels satisfying can sometimes help. You know like, what are the turns? What are the inversions? What should some, what kind of things should be happening in the first act? How should that relate to the end of the second act? Those sorts of things because I think I do the opposite–

Rosell: Where does the dog melt? 

Meg: Yeah. Where does the dog melt? Where does the cat get lost in the wall?

Charlie: Yeah. 

Meg: Where does the egg come out? But, I think like anything else, if you just get so fixated on it, just because it fits the story structure doesn't mean it's a good story. 

Marder: Right.

Meg: Yeah.

Charlie: Well, that’s writing. Uh–so, uh Scott. This is what a podcast is. Uh–

Rosell: Has anyone been on a podcast before listening to a podcast?

Charlie: You’re the first person ever.

Marder: That’s how I normally operate.

Charlie: Yeah. 

Rosell: Will you listen to this?

Marder: Um–

Charlie: Well, you don’t have to.

Marder: No. 

Charlie: You lived it.

Marder: Why would I, I certainly wouldn’t listen to myself. No.

Charlie: Yeah.

Rosell: Yeah.

Charlie: Well, you should listen to some podcasts here and there. You might, you might–if–

Marder: I hear a lot of good things about this one. From people that are just–that just, like it. I mean.

Charlie: Well, uh, you listen to music like when you workout? Or a, like–when are you listening to anything?

Marder: I feel like I’m still writing to like, thundering techno. That we listened to in college. 

Rosell: He writes to like, the most aggressive like, german techno music. 

Charlie: Oh dude, that’s my kid man. That’s like, he’s all just, he’s like, I listen to his music when I’m, when I drive him to school. And it’s all just like, german techno. Like, crazy intense–

Marder: They used to like, joke on The Mick like, that Facebook movie. When those programers are working. Like, “He’s wired in.” Like, you’d just hear thundering techno coming out of headphones, just writing. 

Meg: That’s so funny.

Marder: Takes me to a weird place. 

Rosell: It’s like the song at the beginning of the movie, Blade. 

Marder: Oh. Love that song. 

Rosell: Marder’s sweet spot for writing. 

Marder: Good blood rave music. Oof.

Charlie: There it is.

Meg: *Laughter* Blood rave.

Rosell: Something people would do to like to like, lots of drugs to. He’s in an office sober writing a script.

Charlie: Calms you down. 

Marder: Yes.

Charlie: It soothes you.

Marder: I guess so. Yeah.

Charlie: Oh man. Well–

Meg: We’ve done it.

Charlie: We’ve done it guys.

Rosell: This is it?

Meg: This is it. This is what it takes.

Charlie: This is what it is. That’s the podcast. The podcast there is no writing. You just, talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, and talk–

Marder: It’s nice. Just catching up.

Meg: Yeah.

Charlie: And then it just sort of ends.

Rosell: And then it just, sort of ends.