Staff Review With Todd Levin

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Okay, let's get started. Hey, welcome to a Thursday episode of Conan O'Brien needs a friend. Usually these are fan episodes, but we've been mixing it up a little bit recently. And I'll tell you why, getting ready for the Oscars, and I have my A+ elite writing staff downstairs in the building, working hard on concepts, riddles, quizzes, recipes for

the Oscars, and I am very fortunate. I'll just come out and say it. I work with the best writers in the world, and one of them, I want to come up and hang with them. Brian Kylie, a couple of days ago, and now we're going to do it with Mr. Todd Levin about

his sharper writer as you will find. You really are. That's really nice. You're a crazily talented, and I'm so glad that you're helping me with the Oscars.

“And we've, I think you joined me, did you say it was 2009?”

Was when you came on board? 2009, just as you were wrapping up late night in New York. I was wrapping up late night, and I was headed to take over the tonight show for a 30-year run, and you had jobs for life. You said, remember to, I hired you, and you said, you know, tonight show hosts last forever,

and you said count me in, and you started spending money like crazy. It was, most of it was spent, you've already been got to California. Yeah. Yeah, he showed up.

And the first day he got, he said, I'm buying a Bentley, and he got a laces plate that

said tonight show for life. Yeah. And I said, I looked it up. It was way too many characters. That was.

For a license plate. It wasn't even legal. It was actually tonight show for life three, because two other people had gotten the same better to play. Two other writers for Mike tonight show.

Yeah, so you were with me for the end of late night tonight show, then the TBS thing, and now Oscars, and yeah, so you will be my writer for life. Whether you want to be your guy. So I'm just, let's get into this a little bit, because there are different types of writers. They're the kind that it chatter constantly.

I'm sorry to say I was one of those. What? Exactly. Oh, my God. Doing bits in the room and dancing around like a chimp, a chimp on the grass.

And then Todd, you're that, I call you, you're like a ninja in a sass and you're quiet. You're taking things in, and then you'll say something that's really hilarious, and you'll write something that's really great. But there's not a lot of, you know, babbling and hey, look at me, which I really admire. Not the monster, too.

Because I believe in my work. Oh, wow. I am very much like a bad musician and I'm also a bad musician, but I'm a bad magician, trying to distract you. I'm like, whoa, look at this.

We won. And then because I'm afraid someone will really look and see, there's not a lot of protein here.

“I think it's also just because I've never been uncomfortable with that part of like”

performing stuff. Yeah. Even when I was doing stand-up, I was the guy who just hugged the microphone. I just held it deared, I mean, I wasn't like a big act of trying to leave with it.

Yeah, because you've got to keep coming back with the mic. Well, tell me about your journey a little bit, because this happens so often, I work with these really talented people, and I get to know them more than the trenches together. And I think, hey, I don't really know your origin story. But when did you know, oh, comedy is for me?

I mean, I think I always knew it as a kid, but I didn't know, I think you probably

hear this a lot. And I think a lot of people who are in comedy say this, but I didn't know it was a career. You know, I didn't grow up in that kind of environment. You know, my parents were both state workers in Albany, New York, and I, so I loved

had a terrible record collection.

“He had very, like, a couple of John Denver's a couple of Barbara Streisand's, right?”

But then my dad also had David's saying, what's wrong with that? Yeah. That's not great to me. Not much. I love your parents.

When can I come over? David's. I don't know. But my dad had a Bob New Heart Records as well. So he had, he was my, my introduction to comedy.

So I was listening to his records all the time. And he had cause be records to, you could say that. But those were also like huge, a huge influence on you, Jim. Yeah.

And then my dad also had this rule like we had this really strict bedtime.

But if we had HBO when I was growing up, and if there was a funny movie on at nine o'clock, he would let me stay up to watch, watch it with him. So I'd watch a lot of comedies with my dad. Everything you're saying resonates completely with me, because my parents had nothing to do with show business.

I'm growing up just outside Boston. I, you know, show business is this thing that exists on Jupiter, it's done by aliens. But my father was very interested in comedy. He was, you know, infectious disease, scientist, doctor. And he, but he loved comedy.

He loved New Heart. We had those records. He also had a terrible record, I mean, like no records. But he loved comedy and when a movie like mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world would come on once a year, we weren't allowed to watch TV at night.

If it was a school night, if it's school the next day. But he would say, when this comedy came on, he would say we could all watch it. And I mean, this was unheard of. But that was sacrosanct, if there was a really good, classic comedy, we could watch that. So, and I think New Heart, you know, would a great person to learn from because the

jokes and the concept, it's about jokes and concepts. He's like a madador. He didn't move that much, you know, it's all the power of the joke and stillness to it. Yes, for sure. And the musical ear.

Yeah. Yeah, I loved him. Yeah, so my dad turned me on to Bonnie Python, to SNL, all those things. So I was really into it as a kid. And like, you know, had no idea that it could be a thing you could do for a living.

And then when I moved to New York, which is just a place, I knew that I wanted to be a New York eventually. I didn't know what. I wanted to do there. I just knew I needed to be a New York eventually.

And then when I got there, I just gravitated toward people who were doing improv and doing stand up. But I don't even know how or why I befriended these people. But I started to kind of get in with that world and people, my friend, we're just encouraging me to get out on stage and just do stuff.

That's great. In the beginning, I wasn't even, my, the beginning of my stand-up career was me reading bits. It was very much like a new heart thing where I was just, I would prepare. I written bit that depended on the page because I was so scared.

And I just was like, I need the words to be perfect. So I would structure it like, well, I got these letters in the mail and that, you know, I thought I'd share them with you or these, I found these old diary entry. So something that was sort of, it had to be read. And then as I continued to do it, I just got more comfortable being in front of people

when being spontaneous and the pages started drifting away.

“But you have to find a special place to do that because...”

Yes, you can do our club. There are comedy clubs where it's very confrontational and you have to almost fight them to prove that you're funny, which is, you know, can read a certain kind of style. And then there are places you can go, there are more open to experimentation, 100%. And so where were you finding those places?

So in New York, that was, there was a place called Rafifee, which was in the back of, I was like, they showed movies there and there was also, like, for a less night. It was a really weird place. There was a bar in the front and a little theater in the back and there was a big, kind of thriving alternative scene there.

So I would do shows there, UCB places like that, there's a place called Lunar Lounge, the head of very famous, like, alternative show on Monday nights. Yeah. It was cool, the roost there. And he was, he was at an older, generally, kind of a generation of comics before me.

Yeah. So there are all these little rooms you can do that. And then once you got comfortable, there still was an expectation that you do clubs.

I never really wanted to do clubs, but if you're doing, if you're trying to get into a festival

or get on TV, then you kind of have to be in clubs and you have, and it is, it's different. It's like, I have to make you like me. Yeah. Whereas in the alternative rooms, you're kind of like, well, this will make you. Like, I, the words I'm saying, well, hopefully make you like me.

“But like, you have to be this person that's approachable.”

And it, it can be combative, but it's just a, it's more of like a struggle.

[LAUGHTER] You just mud-brain. Yeah. You morons. How are you morons tonight?

Yeah. You working class. Scum.

“Hey, why didn't the crowd listen to that good tonight?”

Yeah, they weren't. They were really good until you screamed in your little suit. [LAUGHTER] You dropped your horn rim glasses at one point. I waved a newspaper at them. Don't you eat it, it's pretty heat.

Yeah, everyone has to find their own way. And you do that. And then, what, do you do TV jobs before you came to me? This is my first TV job. So I had been doing pretty well as a stand-up.

But I got in like a TV gig, just performing. And I got an agent through that. But as soon as I got an agent, I said, I want to write. Like, that's what I want to do. I like stand-up, but I love writing.

And this late night was my first TV job.

And I almost didn't take it because I thought, well, shouldn't I have a job on a worse show first? Like, I had that, that's my own insecurity and growing up in this kind of like working middle class family. I was like, shouldn't I have started on something smaller?

Because I was such a huge fan of the show when I got hired that I almost didn't take it. And then the week that, that week, I got the job. And you were like, hey, the show isn't that good. I think I'll be just fine.

Exactly.

“I don't know what the fuss is all about.”

I think Conan's on pills. But yeah, so I had gotten a job on another TV show, a VH1 TV show, the same week. And I was, I almost took that job. And then I got a call from Sweeney about this show.

Yeah, and that's good. Yeah, it was crazy. I love it if you had turned us down and worked on ridiculousness. I know.

Oh my God. I would be ripped. I would be ripped. I would be a bikini's father down. Rich, be on my way.

Get me all the soap, Rich. [LAUGHTER] Get refused to come on this podcast now. I'm not talking to him. How much does this pay?

Yeah. So, talk to me about some of the bits that you're experience working on the show, what were some of the bits that you got on early days are just in general that you were really proud of.

Well, I would say the first thing that I got on that-- well, there are a couple of things. There are a couple of things early on that I got. But the first thing that I got on that I was really proud of that really kind of broke through was Minty.

Minty, the candy cane. Minty, the candy cane. And that was like, it just made people happy. Oh, it was so-- It made me happy. Great.

And ever freshness, take us through the Minty as a candy cane. But not any candy cane, and he's played by McCann. Use play by Brian McCann. I had, basically, I had so much insurance for that bit, though,

because I had Brian McCann, who is an incredible performer.

It's actually so funny. Playing this candy cane that had fallen-- the ideas that he had fallen on the ground briefly. Briefly. Briefly.

He'll brilliantly fell on the ground. He had a few things stuck to him, like a cigarette

“button of penny, and-- And then the song was, can you do the song?”

I'm trying to remember it. Ah. Pantan, come around. Minty, he's a candy cane who briefly fell on the ground. And it was done in that kind of old time.

He fell on the ground. Oh, minty. Pantan, come around. It was. Now he's covered in goo.

Now he's covered in goo. Oh, my God. And-- So McCann played him stack, Brian stack. Brian stack, he's an amazing performer, saying the song,

and Jimmy Vivino arranged it. I can't sing. It's a great song. And of course, Neurander to my heart, because my favorite era of singing, is about 1914.

Megafone singing. Megafone singing. Oh, and it was great. He had just the perfect thing stuck to him. And immediately people loved him.

I loved him.

I would always dance along with Minty.

I think Minty threw things at people. He threw he had a little basket of candy cane that he passed out the audience. And then he would whip them at me. He violently whipped them at you.

And quick shout out to Brian McCann, who I got to get in here at some point, because he played-- he was such a-- that early, early late night show-- he was on, and would just play these hilarious characters that really helped us put our stamp on the kind of humor

we like. And one of my favorites was the man with bulletproof legs. And McCann would come out wearing super short shorts, and incredibly self-satisfied expression. And he would sing a song about how you can't hurt me,

because I've got bulletproof legs. Yes, I've got bulletproof legs. You can't-- and then blam, he'd get shot in the chest, and collapsed, and dies. And it was one of my favorite things, because he would--

he'd make his legs elongate when I was like, I want to do this kind of beautiful swan walk. Yes, you do this long, leg-it-swan walk. Bragging about how-- swan walk, bragging about how his legs were

And it just delighted me.

And that's one of maybe 10,000 things McCann did for us. What do you got there at Wardo? You want me to flip it?

“Yeah, if you want to see one of these minty sketches”

come to life, go on the team co-co-channel. Look up, minty the candy cane. Come on, let's hear 'em. Oh, happy holidays, everyone! Yay!

The boys, he chose, yeah. You can hear the sound of minty the candy cane. You can move it each out on the ground. You can keep it on the ground. Now minty's trouble is cool.

You can keep it on the ground. More jobs and more. That's it. That's not the moment or two, that's the moment. Now, you know, my favorite was minty's covered in goo.

And it's just goo. Yeah. Oh, that made me so happy. [MUSIC PLAYING] [SPEAKING SPANISH]

[SPEAKING SPANISH] [SPEAKING SPANISH] [SPEAKING SPANISH] Oh, another early thing-- I don't want to talk about this that much-- but was the human centipede menorah?

Yeah, which was, that was like, it might have been the same year. And the human centipede had just come out, which was one of the most horrifying-- and still remains, one of the most horrifying movies of all time.

Sona made me watch it on the tour bus. [SPEAKING SPANISH] Oh, really? Yeah. I've never seen him.

I won't watch it. And it buffered a lot. So it took us four hours to watch it. Yeah. Yeah.

It was really, really nice. It was a labor of love. And so, yeah, human centipede menorah.

“So, did this get you tossed out of any religious affiliations?”

Well, the two things I remember about it were that, like, Patton Oswald had tweeted something about how horrifying it was. And I was like, that got him. That's good. If this were of us, Patton Oswald.

And got him's not sleeping, then we know we're in the right to-- Yeah, sorry. And then the other thing was that we did it multiple years.

And for some reason, they always be--

I guess because the costume's fit. They always tried to hire back the same nine guys. And except for one of them, they all came back. It was like a stop home syndrome. Yeah, they all came back.

The one that didn't come back Timothy Shalaman. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] He just, you know, and he won't acknowledge it anymore. No, no, he doesn't talk about it.

He doesn't talk about it. But it was crazy, because those guys would-- they all stayed in touch with each other. It was like a shared trauma. And they all kept it touch.

“And if you want to see the human centipede menorah,”

go on in the team coat. Don't say it, don't. And then don't look at the clip, because it was horrifying. So horrifying. And it's everything you think it is.

Yes. Wow, so-- But I like to do-- that was the thing that I think that I would go back to a lot, which was take something monstrous and make people have

to celebrate it, or take something sweet and make it monstrous. It's like Wikie Bear was like a sweet thing. That's the guy that I wrote. I love that. It's like, you love it when you see it in his voice

is cute, but he's a monster. Yeah, what was it-- what was Wikie Bear was when I would take the, it was like the bear that they were selling. Yeah.

It was a real bear that they were selling that you could ask it questions. Yeah, the based on a real thing. There was a bear that could connect to the internet. It could connect to the internet.

It was like obsessed with murder. Was it a conversation?

The Wikie Bear was always giving anecdotes--

not anecdotes, but like, to ask-- It gives you facts that you would ask it very innocent questions. It would answer them, and then pivot off the question to something absolutely awful.

So give it an example. Turn your number. I know. So you would ask it like-- It was always--

Oh, shit, I was like, at the end of the day. I was like, because it was a cute kid's toy. So I was saying, hey, Wikie Bear, how are you? And then it would-- I'm fine, Conan. And then it would pivot off that really quickly.

Speaking of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It would be like something-- in gain. Yeah. Ed Geen made lab shades out of human skin. Yeah.

And I'm like, Wikie Bear. It's speaking of bright ideas. Yeah, I feel like I'm like-- yeah. Yeah, I was a clever fella.

is that I think my whole life, so many bits, were me trying to be the innocent talk show host who was doing something sweet. It's almost like we didn't have rehearsal. If you follow that logic, we're going to try

at Wikie Bear, Hey, Wikie Bear, and then I'd be trying to be like, OK, well, let's just move it along, Wikie Bear. You know that the second night of the mansion murder is they-- and I'm like, hey, hold on a second, Wikie Bear.

But if you look through it, that's a theme that runs through the entire show. For years and years and years, any version of it is trying to put on a nice show. Show.

And I don't understand what's going on right here. But that was a bit that you helped a lot, actually, because the original draft was like, it was-- I don't think it was unfunny, but it wasn't focused. And then when we were doing in rehearsal,

because the bear would move-- they could control its mouth,

so we could always move in stack was in the voice over booth.

And you guys just started talking about the man's and family. It just became a funny thing in rehearsal. And then stack and I kind of locked into that. We're like, that's what the bit is. Yeah, you have to find it some time.

Yeah, it contains the whole thing. And it was-- So what surprised you, you went from watching the show to then working on it, what are some of the things that struck you as, oh, this is different.

Or, I mean, what were your impressions? Well, the thing that I'll tell you thing that terrified me at first. But then became my favorite thing about the show was that the writers have a lot of autonomy

and that you're kind of expected to not just write your bits, but to produce them. And in a sense, direct them as well. And you're working with the editors. And you're working with all the departments.

Yeah.

And in the beginning, if you've never done that before,

it's so scary. Yeah, there's like a thousand ways to mess this up. And a couple of ways to get it right. And then-- Well, that is something I learned from Lauren Michaels.

When I went to work on Saturday Night Live with Greg Daniels, it was-- I mean, it stunned us. I mean, I was-- I don't know, 23. Oh, maybe. Or 24.

“And suddenly, yeah, I would have been 24, I think.”

But, you know, we pitched a sketch. They said, you know, I did well at read through. And the next thing you know, you're talking to set design. Yeah. Worddrow people.

You're telling them, you know, Lauren would say to me, what kind of restaurant is this? And I'm be like, I don't know. I just get pizza at the corner and I'm the corner. I get a slice.

Are we at or so, or are we at a lady? Oh, my God. You know, we downtown it. Yeah, bowl. Oh, some one.

I'm like, I don't know. We'll be good if we're in restaurants. I don't go to restaurants.

I've never been to a restaurant.

I have two pairs of jeans and in 1973, I'm a valiant. Don't ever turn me that again. But, yeah. And so, Lauren threw us into the deep end of the pool.

And at first it felt like insanity. And then I realized, no one's going to care more than the people who thought of it. Yeah, it's a great idea.

“And so, you should be the one that's anal.”

And like, you know, exacting about what it has to be because it's your vision. Yes. And so, and then you, you just, I think it leads to so many things.

I mean, I think you have a really good director's eye. So many of the writers do, you develop that really quickly because you know what you want. Yeah, that's very true. Sometimes even when you didn't think you were that kind of person,

you find out really quickly if you have to produce the sketches. I totally agree. And the, the downside of it is that you also waste so many resources. Like there's so many times because you're in control that there's no one to say, are you sure you need all that?

And like absolutely, like, why is minty made out of silver? Because that's the way I thought of it. Exactly. Do it for me. Do it 800,000 times.

Yeah, no, it would be a lot of times. Like, there was a thing that Dan Cronin and I worked on. That was so, so needlessly ambitious. It was just a parody of a commercial, like, uh, what was it? It was like, uh, uh, uh, not a pollo, uh, del taco.

That's what it was. It was the idea that it was a del taco delivery system. So that it was, it was, it was so stupid on its face. It was a special device on your toilet that when you flushed it, we could recognize when your body had room for another burrito.

Yeah, I knew the toilet was going to come in. And then it would immediately provide you with that burrito. Once you had cleared enough room out of your body for a new burrito. Yes. And we, and it's, and it, and it, it came to me.

This is something del taco's thinking about.

“I think he was off some story about how Nike or Reebok had developed these sneakers”

that you could press a button and it would get dominoes for you. It was like connected to dominoes. Yeah. So this was like del taco's version of that. See, man?

Yeah. And it's so, so stupid on his face and it became so ambitious where there's this, it gets so in sync with your body's needs that it opens up like a third eye and

in sync. It was so expensive.

“But that's what Jim Downey was really good at this.”

He loved the comedy of take something very simple and then make it needlessly

complicated. But that isn't itself is funny. So a long commercial about change bank where Jim Downey's explaining to you that if you give us $5, we'll give you, you know, this, this, this many quarters. This many singles and or we'll also give you this many nickels.

This many quote and excellent over explaining it. And I think there's something to an idea of that stupid that then probably uses animation, computer graphics to explain how it works, green screens of like once the this area has been avoided, then this area is created and this area of your brain and you're like, this is such a stupid idea.

I cannot believe that you would go to this much trouble and that's where the funny stuff comes from. I think a lot of times I think the show kind of for me at least taught me some of that too because so much of what I felt like I was trying to do as a writer was to break

“you because I think you've seen so much, you just have seen so much and that there's always”

that there's that kind of line between okay that'll work for the show and I want to see that on the show.

Yeah, yeah, I think we're always trying in a new year rooting against us.

Yeah, I'm ready to go. I'm ready against you right now. Yeah, this is what I'm, I wanted to say something. You're having such a respectful conversation with Todd and it's very confusing to me. When he's being nice at the beginning, I thought it was an ambush.

I know. Oh, it is. This is an IRS thing. I don't know. Has you ever made fun of you for like a piece not working out?

Do you have that? Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me.

Can you.

Eduardo, can you kill her Mike?

No. No, no. That is, I mean, I would have this, there was this relationship with the writers where if something was really tanking, you could see me licking my lips. Oh, yeah.

This is going to be delicious.

“And I remember, I think we were doing, I forget we were doing shows at Comic Con and one”

of the writers had come up with it's R2D2, but he's gone Hollywood and he's like, hey, make sure you get me a good table at that, you know, he had like a cigar and, you know, yeah, and where's my limo? Yeah, she, she, and it was just wasn't working and felt like kind of an old take and I, people said they saw me looking my lips and rubbing my hands together.

I was so like, oh, we, we've got to have more R2D2 gone Hollywood and, um, yes, you would sometimes interact with the thing more than needed. Yes, to have a small R2D2 who's gone Hollywood and whoever wrote it was like, okay, fuck you counted. But, um, no one is more delighted by left-brain crazy ideas that tickle me, like those things, that's a religious experience.

You've written much more than your share of those and, um, you know, let's hope we can do it at the Oscars. Yeah. I like going to be so much fun, but yes, I will ridicule you in an hour when I come back down.

I will mock you. You've gotten everything. Yeah. There is no past. There's only the present. Time is a loop, um, but, uh, cannot thank you enough, uh, honored to work with you and, uh, get back to work.

Thank you so much for having me. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Session, and Matt Gorley, produced by me, Matt Gorley, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nicelya, incidental music by Jimmy Levina, take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer Aaron Blair, associate talent producer Jennifer Samples, associate

producers Sean Doherty, and Lisa Burm, engineering by Eduardo Perez, get three free months of Sirius XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Conon. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a fan wherever fine podcasts are down. [BLANK_AUDIO]