Today we have the inimitable Josh and Seth just guess who they might be first Josh and Seth let’s go one step further Josh and Seth Meyers I have to say Josh and Seth Meers were probably the most wholesome guests we’ve ever had like one of the most wholesome
Conversations just loved each other so much I instantly wanted to get pregnant with twin boys yeah I I told peva that I they made me want to have two boys two brothers their Dynamic was so sweet yeah I had family Envy so Seth Meyers uh you you
You probably know that name I mean there’s Late Night with Seth Myers right and uh formerly of weekend update on SNL so that’s and head writer that’s right that’s right that’s right and head writer so I mean you know doesn’t really get bigger um his brother Josh is a
Comedic force in his own right you might know him from Mad TV uh they have a podcast together called family trips that we actually all three of us as a um fake family went on together and uh we just spent like a thre hour Myers conversation marathon
And it was so lovely because they they’re they’re they’re good people and they and they seem to be brought up by good people and it’s just that’s really refreshing the one question I wanted to ask them was do the other comedians ever give you hard time about how sweet your
Family is you know yeah I can imagine there’s got to be a running joke uh but you guys are going to love it it was very fun uh very sweet but there’s still some you know there’s some swear words in there too for those of you who need that stick
Around welcome to pod crushed we are hosts I’m pen I’m Nava and I’m Sophie and I think we could have been your middle school besties falling in love with your older brother what so you guys are you guys are brothers and you’re close in age so I mean what I
Understand you would have been both going through this time of not just middle school but like coming of age like together more or less yeah when now how do you guys where do you put coming to age do you guys have have you figured out a you
Know we focus on middle school so that’s like what you would have been 6th 7th e8th grade that you would have been something like what is that are we talking 11 to 14 yeah you just saying those ages brought up one of the most a memory that still
Makes my skin crawl if iare please so I fancied myself someone who was good at sports and yet at every level I was told that was not the case I loved watching sports and I was one of those kids who thought oh if I watch enough baseball I’ll be good at baseball so
Played a little little league and then I think it must have been you tried out every year and then based on the triy outs they would just even out the skills on the teams in the town league they basically said we don’t think you’re ready for where the seventh
Graders play we think you should do another year with the fifth and sixth graders is that why we got to play together I don’t you were held back I was basically held back from baseball and I remember getting the call and just first of all just C sweat cuz it was the coach
Telling me hey good news we’re going to have you we think another year and first of all you realize if you’re um you know 13 and they’re holding you back in baseball that’s basically they’re killing your Major League Dreams in that moment too there’s never a story about
You know you know Albert Pool would sixth grade twice in baseball so but then I remember uh trying to decide if it was if I was too embarrassed and was if I was going to quit and I decided I wouldn’t quit and and I was going to do
Uh another year of baseball cuz I liked playing baseball but here’s the part that I’m really embarrassed I was in The Dugout and I didn’t like tell all the kids on the team like I’m here because I you know wasn’t good enough to go up early and someone was like wait you’re
In whatever grade you’re in seventh grade what are you doing here when’s your birthday and somebody said when’s your birthday and instead of telling them I tried to lie to get the ages to work why I quick very yeah very quick math to figure out
What what the right date to say would be and I in exactly and and nor was I quick enough to execute this so I basically fumbled on my and this was in a Dugout full of kids I was like uh Mar and they were like you don’t know your birthday
What’s wrong with you so now not only am I bad at baseball I’m like the dumb kid who doesn’t know his own birthday no it was the wor and then I remember the the kid who asked lat later I thought this would I like a day later I said hey I want to
Explain what happened I’m embarrassed that I’m playing baseball at this level and that’s why I tried to say a different birthday and I was and he was looking at me like what like he had completely forgotten like I’ve been carrying it around for 24 hours I’m like
You know what I’m just going to own up to it and they can do it what they will and it was just a good reminder that you think everyone’s looking at you and no one is no one is Seth I feel like that’s so mature though and like says a lot
About you that you like took accountability you wanted to get it I would have I would have gone to the Grave swearing that I was wor March whatever I have two birthdays I don’t know what to tell you some people have two birthdays yeah that’s like when you
Tried to call uh later on in life Seth had a car breakdown and called for a tow truck but didn’t have AAA but our dad had AAA and he told the tow truck driver who looked at the card the tow truck driver said what’s your name
And Seth said Larry and the tow truck driver said but your license says Seth and he’s like well Larry’s my nickname and the driver said is it it’s like it’s also my dad’s name and the tow truck driver was like your nickname is your dad’s I’m just deeper and just trying to
Get a deal on a toe I think the big thing here is one of the reasons I’ve learned to take accountability Nava is I’m a terrible liar and so I mostly I have to constantly own up to it because I wouldn’t get away with it if I tried to but we couldn’t lie
Growing up that was the caral parents in our house we even once we got to an age where you know we might be drinking let’s say uh the rule was just admit that you’re drinking and if you’re going to someone’s house stay there um but if
You lied about whether or not you were drinking that’s where you could get in some real trouble did you lie did you get in trouble I yeah I mean well there was the one time that uh I lied we were going to where was I maybe like Molly suder’s
House or Amy Way’s house and my but my friends I I sort of hung out in high school a lot with a Randy a Tim and a Tim and we spent so many nights sleeping at Randy suazo’s house and there was a night where everyone sort of lied and said they were
Staying at another guy’s house because we were going over to this girl’s house and she was having a party and we were going to be drinking and in the morning uh Tim O’Brien called my house because uh or Tim O’Brien’s parents called my house because uh they had been
Told that they were all sleeping over at our place and he had to go home to help his father move a dining room table and my father said no they not here and then there was this chain of calls going on to figure out where the boys have been
And Seth woke up earlier than he would ever wake up on a Sunday morning because he heard all of this activity came downstairs soy sat at the kitchen table I came in and came home and my dad said where were you and I said I was at ry’s
And he said nope I was like I oh right I was it I was at Tim O’Brien he was like nope I was like Tim Wilson said nope I was like all right I you kept trying I kept trying and I went through the the
All the houses and I was like all right I was at Molly suitors and he’s like okay you’re grounded and Seth just stood up and went right back to bed and was so happy but he I knew he wit I knew he would try to lie his way out of it I
Knew they had him dead to rights it was it was it was like watching the thrill you get when you watch that last courtroom scene in A Few Good Men I knew exactly I wish I had it on tape so I could watch it over and over again yeah
I’m sure I was very bad in the moment um there was uh I did take the don’t lie to your parents thing seriously and I remember once I did one of those things where went to a friend’s lake house you know uh late high school we
All drank a lot and there was a long Dock and like late at night I ran down the dock and Dove off and as I dove off I heard someone go it’s shallow and like hit my face against like the Rocks um on the ground and so I my whole face was
Like cut up no and it looked bad and so the next morning I had to go back home and I remember I had a very the kind of friend who thought you could get away with anything and he was like cuz I’m like I’m just going to tell him what
Happened he’s like you can’t tell him what happened here’s what’s going to happen and he had a Jeep like one of those Open Door Jeeps he goes when we pull into your driveway I’ll slam on the brakes fall out and it’ll look like you scraped your
Face I looked like you scraped your face on the on because we had a gravel driveway and I was like I don’t want to do that and just everybody all these guys cuz we drove like a 2our drive from you we lived in in in Southern New
Hampshire and the lakes were you know farther north so it was like two hours of everybody having here’s what we you should tell them and I just remember walking in and my dad’s like what happened I’m like I dove for do and I hit my face just couldn’t it was it was just
Easier yeah to be honest with my dad about how dumb his son was than try to prove how dumb he was by trying to lie his way out of it that’s that’s great if you can create an environment where your kids feel comfortable to tell you the truth you’re
Kind of matter what yeah I I I fully agree when we were very young um and if we would sort of like leave toys all around or we’d make a mess and someone would come in and uh be like who did this we had a fictional Duo that we would blame but I
Think it was adorable and they were the bad boys and you’re welcome to join me if you want but we would always sing the bad boys did the bad boys did will clean it up it’s hard to sing on Zoom together you did well you did well but it’s the
Bad boys did it the bad boys did it and we will clean it up and it’s like everyone all right but it’s nice to have someone to blame in sort of a weird child brain of like yeah but we did it but it’s okay right well I was gonna ask
So it sounds like Seth there was at least one time where you you woke up particularly to Delight in in Josh’s demise but then what was your relationship like to each other in terms of fighting did you fight a lot as siblings we didn’t I my memory is no we
Shared so we each had our own bedroom but each of our bedrooms had two beds it was a bunk bed in Josh’s room and two twins in mine and we always slept together so we would choose each night which bed to sleep in so we had our own
Room which we could have our own stuff in you know we had our or if you had sleepovers you would have a friend sleep in your room so we always hung out together we would only the only fights were when we rough housed and someone got hurt which 100%
Of the time was Josh yeah and that and and even then the fight was me not wanting him to go tell Mom and Dad you know we we played in the basement with sort of our playroom um it was a finished basement and there was a a wood stove and like
That’s where we would always hang out and if I would get hurt I would instantly start running sort of down this snaking hallway to go up the stairs and Seth would try to tackle me and hold me back yeah it was it was like I think I
Think that’s right they always say like it’s not the crime it’s the cover up that was very much the case with uh with this there was one time I I have no idea what we were fighting about but it was we were so angry at each other and we
Decided we’re going to have an actual like fight yeah um and we had an old uh a couch that would convert into a bed but it was all foam it sort of like folded into itself it wasn’t metal or anything yeah no metal so we put that
Out and that was going to be like the ring that we were going to fight in Seth had a friend over and it was like we’re going to ring the bell and so we came together and we started grappling and I got my hand around Seth’s foot and it sort of slipped off
The end of his foot and as it did his big toenail came off in my hand and it the fight was over before it started like we were just both so aass at what had happened I felt terrible um but that was that I should note I also think that fight was very
Much due to my friend Greg who is a agent of chaos I think his solution was always oh we should actually have an organized fight yeah um but I don’t because I don’t think Josh and I our first instinct was ever to fight also Josh was very whenever I
Had friends over Josh was uh added in and our house was the one we hosted a lot of sleep overs it was a house people came over to after school my parents were I think of the mind as well like if your kids like you enough to have their
Friends over then you will never have to wonder where they are like it’s better to have them in your basement than you know and also just having to like go pick them up at somebody else’s basement so we were always over and Josh was always sort of like the plus one to our
Group and uh less the other way like I don’t think the older brother maybe hangs out with the younger uh brother’s friends but Josh was always sort of part of my group of friends as well so when you went through this stage let’s say you know you’re exiting childhood
Entering adulthood it’s a long phase but like you know something that starts to happen is just feelings thoughts idea everything just deepens and becomes far more expansive and life mature life is kind of beginning did you do you do you recall any like noticeable shift between
You two then or like or like I mean maybe the bond just got deeper I mean it sounds like you’ve just had this kind of steady progression but did you noce any shift when you’re going through this time no I also we never like talked about girls no it’s still talking about girls
Still makes me uncomfortable like with like I’ve never liked sort of kiss and tell stories that guys might have uh I’ve never enjoyed those conversations I don’t like talking about them it always has felt like that’s private I’ve been I’ve been married 10 years Josh’s still never met my
Wife he’s like that’s your thing I don’t it’s it’s gross I’m like where do you think those kids come from he’s like I don’t want to think about it I don’t um yeah but yeah no we we never really never were never like who she’s hot or
There you know so we had I mean I you know and obviously we we had girlfriends but that was very much not in the house which is so funny also because our parents are very open and not like about uh sex but about like sexuality maybe I mean we watched you
Know movies at at very age inappropriate times and the humor in the house was uh very adult and yet despite that I feel like Josh and I were very prudish when it came to talking about girls with one another did you talk to your parents about your feelings towards girls no I
Only remember that my dad’s birds and the bees talk with me and I don’t I wonder if it was the same one I got go ahead he said uh if you have sex with a girl it will mean so much more to her than it will mean to you so he said so
Don’t do it unless you really care about them wow yeah it was similar it was yeah to me it was like uh you know I was dating this girl and he’s like she is she clingy and I was like I don’t know I don’t think of her is clingy and he’s
Like there’s nothing more clingy in the world than a teenage girl you’ve just had sex with and I was like oh and he’s like so so make sure you like her uh and then yeah I didn’t have sex till College Larry Larry you think that really
Contributed to it I don’t know I think I wasn’t necessary for me he definitely scared me off it because that he he put a but not in a bad way he but he put He said like look there’s a real emotional burden yeah sure and there is and there is that’s
There is and he’s like I don’t think you’re ready for it also I wasn’t um certainly in high school like I had girlfriends but I ne I never had a girlfriend that I was capable of being heartbroken about I don’t I didn’t it took me a long I don’t know if I ever
Did um I’m kind of alone I was always like yeah or or just go home alone or I’ll go flip through my baseball cards and read my coms baseball cards comic books they’re not going to read themselves you feel like getting into those relationships was more just like oh this
Is the thing to do cuz it sounds like you super interested in them it wasn’t that I didn’t they were always uh girls that I liked and girls that I was friends with it was just that I remember a girl I was dating like back when you were dating where it barely
Meant anything mhm like there was barely a physical element maybe like it was like you could date someone and maybe not kiss them like that was that’s my first two girlfriends yeah and she gave me a cassette single um a Cass SLE a cassingle that for those for the
Children listening that is a cassette tape with only one song on each side and it was the uh nxs song Never Tear Us Apart and she gave it to me and I just remember thinking oh I feel like we’re in different places what we think about this relationship and that can you only
Imagine if we had sex yeah my God never tear us apart at handholding I anything could tear us apart another kid coming down the hallway uh so that yeah I I was always very cutely aware that I was not when guys would be all torn up about a
Breakup that did not it was not really where I ever felt like I was at well this is a good point to ask one of our classic questions which is to share about your first love and heartbreak Seth if you’ve never been heartbroken the first time you crushed the girl I I
By the way I I’m realizing a bunch of college friends are listening right now being like [ __ ] what but college is a different college is different so I would say heartbreak was um was College I don’t think I was uh I don’t think I was I was capable of heartbreak in high
School how about you Josh Josh got Josh has been heartbreaking so often a yeah Josh has so I hope we get into how dramatic Josh was in his late early let get into it we want to hear it um yeah I mean my first like the two girls that I never
Kissed that I dated one of them you know I it was just you you asked a girl will you go out with me that was sort of that was the line that you said and then she would say yes or no or you could write
It in a note and she could Circle yes or no or something like that and I want to say it was maybe in sixth grade and I remember being on a ski lift with a girl and was like working up the nerve to to ask her to go out with me and right
Before we got off like you know the put your tips up you’re getting to the top of this thing and I said will you go out with me and she said yes and then I skied away from her and like didn’t talk to her I want to say for two weeks and
Then she was like hey we need to break up and I was like oh I was crushed but um like s something I did yeah and that you know that would happen again I had I had a good you know girl friend in in high school that I don’t
Remember the breakup so much but the first girl I dated in college uh was a very short relationship and I think this is the one Seth’s uh Seth’s talking about but um we you know I still I was still a virgin um I had just gotten to
College I met this girl uh was completely smitten and um there were things at our school called uh I don’t know if it was a mixer or a date party but like where a big group of two fraternities and two sororities would go to a bar in Chicago or
Something like that and I heard that the girl that I was dating had made out with this guy and I got this piece of gossip and I stomped over to the guy who I really liked and still like but I walked over to his um dorm room and I was like hey
Did this happen did you make out with her and he’s like yeah why and I was like cuz she’s my girlfriend he’s like oh sorry I did I didn’t know and it was you know after a night when people had been out in Chicago so it was late and
Seth and I shared a car in college we had a VW Golf and he lived off campus and I went and I got the car and I drove to the last place I could remember being happy which was okus Michigan which is where we left when I was 5 years old before we
Moved to New Hampshire so I drove through a snowstorm I don’t know how far from Evanston to East Lancing it is but like 3 to four hours I want to say um I would have thought even maybe longer it was maybe longer and I was just to clarify a
Girl he barely dated broke up with him and it made him forget the past 13 years of yeah that that was hitting me the happiest guy parents loved High School loved his brother he’s like you know what she literally set him back 13 years
Wow and I drove and I went and I saw our old house I saw our old elementary school and there’s a bagel place in East Lancing right near Michigan State called bagel fragle and I went to Bagel fragel cuz we used to go there our mom got her
Masters at Michigan State and I went to bagel fragel and there was a pay phone there were no cell phones and there was a pay phone between uh when you the first double doors first set of double doors second set of devil doors and I called Mom and
Dad and I was beside I was like she you know it’s over it’s not going to work out in the meantime Seth is woken up in Evanston Illinois uh because we’re both at Northwestern and sees just an empty space where the car had been and called the police because he thought the car
Had been well first I called home and told my dad the car is gone and this is hearkens back to why I woke up the morning and went downstairs when Josh got in trouble because everybody always assumes I’m the one who [ __ ] up and so my dad was like
Did you leave it unlocked did you leave the keys in it and it should be noted the reason everybody thinks I’m the one who [ __ ] up is I do [ __ ] like that all the time so I was like probably I probably did those things he’s like well
That’s why I got stolen so now you have to call the police police so I called the police and uh and and then Josh I guess because you called home yeah a blubbering phone call from a pay phone to Mom and Dad who then called you yes and they were like Josh is
In OK Michigan he’s at fragel Bagel he’s at frel Bagel is really I will say being very depressed and going to a place called Bagel fragel is really funny and then I was so mad because I didn’t feel like enough attention was being paid to how I had been
Blamed because my dad was like so the car isn’t wasn’t stolen and I said you know actually it was stolen Josh stole it because otherwise he would have said I’m taking the car so it was stolen actually and uh now but was that a different one Josh than the
Time that we were leaving the the date party the the Greek restaurant was that a different girl that you were so upset about then oh yeah I don’t know but I remember that was different so another time so Josh and I were in the same fraternity and we went to this
Fraternity event that was just there’s no girls and it was like a basically like Midwestern 90s bin shrinking and I I wouldn’t recommend it but we gone to greet restaurant and Josh again had gone was going through a different bad breakup and he and I our family as
Steelers fans my dad’s from Pittsburgh and that next weekend we were going to see a Steelers game and we’re driving back on this bus and Josh is basically drunk and crying and I said hey look at it this way a week from now we’re going
To we’re going to go see the Steelers in Pittsburgh and I’ll never foring he goes I never love the Steelers you and Dad oh my goodness so I mean but I was a theater major you guys okay now it’s all making sense I love your family I love you like just
The the that that Josh you would have driven so far and it was a place where when you’re recalling now you can’t even refrain from telling us that that’s where your mother got got her Masters and then you go into the you and you go
Into the you go into the phone booth and you just immediately call Mom and Dad and then the first thing they do is call Seth if I understand correctly yeah just like it’s just I I mean it’s beautiful it’s a really lovely lovely thing to hear and and reminisce about I’m so
Happy we went to college together the main reason isn’t even for the time we spent together in college it’s that Josh and I are now part of the same college friend group where there’s 12 of us that get together once a year and Josh is so I you know have this great
Weekend where I both see all my oldest college friends and my brother so that is how it pays off it was a little stressful because when I was at College when you have your younger brother and your family as close as ours there was this expectation that I would look out
For him and and so when Josh would have these moments there I always felt there was a sense for my parents of like could you not let him drive to okus I don’t know creeped over in the dead of night yeah I’m pretty I don’t quite know how to pretty elusive in that
Way but also I remember there was um we were in the same fraternity but I had so many of my friends pledged a different fraternity and it felt also to me like this horrible emotional cleaving and that I would never see these people again and I remember going to Seth’s you
Know room in the in the frat house and just like balling and balling my eyes out that it hadn’t gone the way that I wanted it to go and that me and these friends weren’t going to be together and that was the end of things and then I
Was just at a reunion recently and it was so strange the group we were hanging out was like the first floor of that dorm was sort of the Hub it wasn’t a fraternity thing and those friends I am still friends with and shared a king bed
With one of them because neither of us were smart enough to get the room with the double Queen um but yeah um do you feel like that Dynamic is still true today like it sounds like Josh you’re quite a bit more sensitive and emotional than Seth is that true today I
I I think I I mean Seth is I’m more sensitive but Seth is sensitive I think he just needs to sort of step off the ledge a bit more and when he does uh you know those tears will come pretty readily Seth loves uh Thanksgiving and
Very often will cry in the midst of a Thanksgiving toast a and best holiday it’s the best holiday my favorite one agree I’ve heard at least one of you refer to your dad like today as your best friend and we’re just talking about how much we all love your family even
Though we haven’t met your parents but um I want to know can you point to anything that he did Growing Up that has led to that like any I know it’s probably so many things but well I will just say so he worked really hard and he
Commuted to Boston which was an hour drive each way so he got home fairly late and would leave pretty early but the thing I remember about Dad is he never had anything else going on other than us on the weekends there was never any sense that
Until we had our own things we wanted to do did he start having a hobby even you know that he was never like when he picked up golf it was the four of us would go golfing and when he you know he started umpiring Little League games cuz we were playing
Little league and so but it was all there was never a sense that he had any hobbies outside being our dad MH and that was pretty awesome yeah also like when he would get home from work that was a big event for us and we would
Always you know he’d be in a suit or a shirt and tie and uh he’d be like come upstairs with me while I change and so instantly we were you know sitting on the bed while he was you know getting into more comfortable clothes and uh you
Know we always had dinner together the four of us at the table um this is uh I I should so we have my wife uh pointed this out the first time she came to cuz my parents still live in the house Josh and I grew up and we only ever ate
Dinner at the kitchen table and it’s the smallest kitchen table like you couldn’t fit a fifth chair there if you tried and and she her take on my family would be we are deeply insular my dad once said which uh will not surprise uh uh either of our
Significant others he uh along his lines of like don’t have sex with a girl because it’ll matter more to her than you he said uh if ideally marry an orphan he was like it’ll just be easier to not have to integrate two families yeah right yeah but yeah he really
Pushed the orphan thing hard yeah he really it was a long long running bit of his but he uh so Josh gave a a the greatest best man toast in the history of weddings at mine and as he says the tears do come I had four in my life the four hardest cries
Of my life happen within the same toast where I would compose myself and then he would say something where I would just have like I think the word for it is like a CR crying Jack like just like like I would Buckle over because it it
Hit me again and uh one of my friends actually said who uh has she turned to her husband during Josh’s speech they had one kid and said we have to have another kid like she understood the importance of like siblings based on Josh’s toast our wedding but Josh the really funny
Theme of it was how welcoming like how we grew up and this is true we grew up we sat at that kitchen table every night we had dinner and then we would play Hearts and it was always the same teams and it was me and my mom against Josh
And my dad and we every night we would play Hearts and Josh was saying like how the great thing about Hearts it’s a four person game and we’re four person family and he tells this lovely speech and he talks about my wife and he talks about
My wife’s family and Josh is very close with them as well so you know that the joke being married an orphan but we I got incredibly lucky with my in-laws um but then at the very end Josh was like and we just want you to know you’re always
Welcome at our table unless we’re playing Hearts because that is a four person game love was it real there was some real truth in that Seth are you gonna have your your writers prepare your speech for Josh’s wedding or are you gonna tackle that one on your I try very
Hard to not let my writers punch up anything personal um because they’re just ultimately not that good of people yeah they’re good at writing jokes about say the news but if you ever left you never want them to speak from your heart because theirs are [Laughter] black you guys have a podcast called
Family trips and um guests come on and they share about memorable family trips and we want to hear about your most memorable childhood family trip I mean it is I think one of the reasons we started doing our podcast is that the ones we always talk about are the
Disasters and that and and I I think because our family was a close and B had a real appreciation for humor when things went bad there was always something funny about it and we love to hear about a disaster trip yeah what I mean the the this the singular
Day that was the biggest disaster is we went to Bush Gardens in Tampa Bay and there was a hurricane there was a hurricane and there were also some tornadoes about oh okay yeah double whammy and so they evacuated the park and you we had to run out of the park
And get on this sort of tram that would take you back to where you were parked and we all got on the tram and then as it pulled away we realized Josh was not on the tram just sort of standing like I don’t know like when you
Like when it when it it was like very felt like a um a black and white romance where someone is just like left on the dock a and uh and it was and then my parents turned on each other pretty hardcore as far as whose fault that was
Right and then we we finally managed to get him and then we got in car and it was standstill traffic and our dad was so mad that every time the traffic moved 3 in he would floor it and then slam on the brakes it’s the worst day of my
Life and yeah we we went to a we went to a lake in Maine uh or a pond cuz it was called molasses Pond um and it just there were bugs and there was a bad ouse and our mother got stung by a uh bit by
A horse fly and her arms swelled up like her forearms were like Popeyes and my mother still contends that it was a great trip and she holds on to it and has like speaks about it lovingly but it was it was trouble all around um to my mom’s Eternal credit I
Don’t think she can say it was a bad trip if both her boys were there yeah she really Our Father threatened a uh coffee table in a Lobby in a hotel in Florida because it it had hurt him yeah um uh he bumped into it and blamed it he
Blamed the inanimate object and swore at it and yeah baled up a fist and got real close to to Smashing it to Smithers and he gets really mad he sort of curses like this like not cartoon character yeah you don’t hear an actual curse word but you
Know that was what it was yeah it’s like in A Christmas Story when the dogs have come in and where the dad yells like does it bumpuses it’s like there’s it’s a collection of swears it’s those um yeah those series of punctuations that imply a swear but you don’t know exactly how
To read them but we are we’re not you know even uh even today when we’re all together you know we like obviously going out to dinner and and we’ll go to sporting events tends to be uh where we uh congregate these days but we Al the the
Highlight is always end of the night just sitting around playing cards or or playing a board game and uh it’s really it’s the best do you think um the Advent of smartphones would have shattered your family Unity or like I’m I like I’m wondering I don’t mean it really but
I’m just it sounds so so your fond memories sound very fond you know and I’m thinking about how technology would have potentially really complicated that it’s funny every now and then my mom will be like oh kids today I mean I never would have let a
Kid look at the phone at the C at the kitchen table I’m like which phone the one on the wall like at least appreciate it’s harder now yeah of course yeah I mean I would if a if a phone had literally every book on it it I think I might have
Wanted to look at it yeah you mention this this tradition with your dad where he comes home and and you guys said on the bed together and then he spent you know he devoted all his weekends to you my impression of someone in your position as like a late night host and
And all the many things that you do and that you’re so talented at is that your time would be different like you wouldn’t have as much time available to you so I’m wondering how you’re thinking about kind of your relationship with your kids and and what you’ll be able to
Carry forward and what you might not so weirdly I would also thought that but yeah no I I’ve got a bunch of going [ __ ] dad or are you well I so I you know I know this is hard to believe but I actually have a very good schedule I
Don’t think I could have been a good dad when I was at SNL but late night’s not terrible and after the pandemic we started taping earlier in the day we tape at 4 and I get home I put my kids to bed every night and awesome the hard thing
Is when I want to do another thing if I want to start you know working on standup again and then you’re basically picking one weekend a month where you’re going to leave and that is the that where the trade-off is but ultimately if I could just be satisfied with doing
Late night it’s not it’s not as awful as you’d think and I’m very lucky because to be to have a job in Showbiz where ultimately every night’s a home game and I don’t work that far from where I live and so I think I think I’m doing a pretty decent
Job I also don’t uh have any hobbies and uh you know very very fingers crossed that this holds very few friends um I just I also wanted sort of just come back because I don’t want it to get lost in all this CU our father
Would take a lot of uh business trips as well and uh you know our mother was you know she had us for so much of the days and we going to talk about how great moms are here we go get back I mean she she
Was and is the best and uh and yeah did it did it all solo and was um yeah it was just amazing and so sweet and loving and she uh had been a teacher and she stopped teaching uh when she had us and then as soon as we were in school and um
You know had had regular length school days she went back to teaching and did that for years but she uh yeah she was she was great I’m glad you said something cuz I was really starting to J you you guys were the ones who were like
Your dad I’ve heard you say your dad’s your best friend well implied in that was like I haven’t heard you say anything about your mom oh you laid a trap oh is this the Trap podcast the um the other thing about uh our favorite thing about her mom oh not our favorite
Thing but one of the great things about her mom is she was just like and again she’s an educator and a beloved educator retired now but she also had this real sense of Mischief if you were sick or wanted to pretend like you were sick she was
Always down to just let you stay home she would go to the video store she’d rent two movies bring them home you would just chill all day with her whereas if my dad left for work you would wait till your dad our dad left
Before you try to be like I think it’s a there’s a tickle cuz if he he would never buy that [ __ ] he’d say toast and tea yeah have some toast and tea and you’re like what’s the point never mind go schol to choke down toast and tea but
She was so that I mean so much of my childhood I just loved those days and I think Josh and I had a sense too of you know we we almost treated them like professional sick days ourselves we couldn’t we couldn’t cash it in that
Often yeah but uh and never on the same day but it was so much fun to stay home with her she would go get a pizza yeah she she was she was down to hang p is terrible for a cold I know exactly that’s how she knew you weren’t sick
She’s like let’s get you some Dairy I feel like Seth in his high school transcript or something it’s like you missed something like 66 days of school something crazy it was bad it was a big number it was a big number it was like just just under the number of was
Like you got to come back budy true I should say in high school I I feel as though a lot I teachers liked me but they all thought I wasn’t living up to my potential but they didn’t think I was a bad kid but they were a little
Disappointed at how and I just remember this really lovely teacher who and I was friends with her son her name was Mrs Alden and she was a math teacher and the amount that I would just be sick on test days and she would just say are you uh
How you feeling I’m like I’m feeling better she goes can’t help but notice it just seems to be on test days I’m like I know I’ve also noticed it’s such weird when did you start to see yourselves as performers when or when did that start to interest you when did
Comedy call we used to watch um uh mystery PBS mystery um and after mystery one night Monty Python came on and we found it completely by accident and so that was sort of our entree into sort of adult silly comedy and um so I think that was
Hugely influential to us and our mother had been a theater major briefly in college our father is very entertaining like he can command a dinner table um and yeah then we would also we would hang out at the foot of our parents bed sort of pseudo performing for them every
Night before they would go to bed we sort of I don’t know if we got tucked in or if we tucked them in yeah just put them to bed um because we would you know we would put on costumes or we would come in and we would just sort of parade
Around at the foot of their bed uh and that was our first stage um and my mom uh laughs at everything growing up my take was she just laughed at our dad all the time and it was really sweet and it just I think there was the thought of ah so
This is a good good inroad with the opposite sex be entertaining and funny um yeah we there were like some talent shows in our high school where Josh and I would do you know either SNL sketches or Monty Python sketches and that was a really that was a really cool thing that
Was the first time being on stage for me making peers laugh where you you think oh my God this is the best feeling in the world because so much of high school is is anybody you want the right kind of attention uh and you’re so afraid of the
Wrong kind of attention and so to like be on stage doing comedy where your uh you know your friends and and even people that weren’t your friends were watching was so so exhilarating we do ask people a couple of questions about their sort of established careers Seth it would be
Great to hear your journey to SNL just sort of like when did that come on your radar how did you get into that I mean the Jour I mean it was it was so weird cuz I ended up working on the show that taught me everything I knew about comedy
Cuz Josh and I would watch it we would stay up and watch it and we would tape it and then when our parents woke up on Sunday morning because they watched it when they were younger we would fast forward and throw them show them the sketches we thought were funny and that
Again was sort of born out of the fact that I think we have the same sense of humor as our parents so we would know the ones they wouldn’t like and those were also the ones we didn’t like and then we both joshh and I both did it’s a
Very similar path uh we both did The Improv troop at Northwestern and then we both worked for this comedy theater in Amsterdam called boom Chicago and then I came back from that and I was just doing this two-person show with our friend Jill Benjamin in Chicago and randomly
One night I was doing this little Improv Festival and someone who worked in the SNL Talent Department was there and saw it and asked me to send in an audition tape and this is back when you would have to find a friend with a camera like
A video camera and it would record it on a little tape and then you’d have to bring that little tape to like a Kinko where they put it on VHS tape and uh and then I mailed it in and I remember at the time just thinking the fact that SNL
Gave me their address was a perfectly good story that I would tell the rest of my life like they gave me their mailing address wow um but yeah so it it all it was weird I I didn’t quite have a plan after college uh but then I got lucky
Enough that things kept happening and uh but it was it all happened very fast I was 27 when I started at SNL and uh and I’ve been working in the building with the same ID ever since wow wow did you people still believe that picture is you
It’s I get some very like withering looks from the uh security guards did you I watch SNL but I don’t remember did you act did you were you always a writer I know you did The Weekend Update but were you ever in the skits uh very hurtful um
So so actually so here’s the thing so I got cast as a as a cast member and uh it was not good it was very Rocky I I did not think I was going to actually make it I and I feel like I have a good I’m
Not too hard on myself I feel like I’m very I have a I’m good at honestly assessing where I fit in an ecosystem and I just looked around when I was there and thought man if I was writing for this show I would be my eighth
Choice when I was writing a sketch you know I was there with Andy Samberg and Jason sakas bill Fred Armon and will for just at some point I’m like they’re really great you know what I mean and like it’s not I wasn’t mad at myself I’m
Like you’re good it’s just this is a hard place to be good you got to be great and but I also in that time I was doing a lot of writing and so then when Tina Fay left Lauren asked if I wanted to basically join the writing staff
Which I had not actually officially been a member of to sort of run things while she was on maternity leave and then I parlayed that into being the headwriter and when I got Weekend Update I then stopped you know trying to force myself into sketches which nobody myself included wanted
Anyway it was it wasn’t it took until like year five where I was like okay they’re they’re getting their money’s worth with me Seth you’ve talked openly about kind of your first year couple years at late night being a bit rough sort of not what people expected from
You and I I think it’s a really actually inspiring story of sticking it through something that sounds like it’d be pretty challenging and and being flexible about it and I’m just curious I don’t know if you want to like recap that a little bit for people who don’t
Know but also what was that time like for you emotionally like it that just sounds like something that would be so grueling and how did you get through it it was it was it was really rough and it was a time where I was then transitioning into having a family so
Even though SNL was a a roller coaster at least I had the room to be incredibly selfish about my uh stress and my anxiety and now all of a sudden I’m married and we’re going to start a family and I got the show and it was
Very exciting but I just the mistake I made was aiming for competence I just wanted to show I could do a talk show and didn’t put enough focus into doing the talk show I wanted to do I don’t know if that makes sense but I thought
Oh I’m going to I’m going to show everybody I can do a monologue just like anybody else who has a talk show and then ultimately if you aim for things other people are doing better than you you end up in the same situation I was
At SNL which is there’s a lot of people are great and you know when you have a lot of great you don’t need a good necessarily and so it still rubs me to this day but when I started the show Lauren Michael said it’ll take you 18
Months to figure it out and I at the time I was riding high it was a headwriter at SNL and I was like it’s not going to take me 18 months it was six months tops probably four and then it was fully 18 months in where I was
Like I’m going to not do a monologue I’m going to start behind a desk I’m going to get back to my weekend update routs and when I realized it was exactly 18 months I was so mad like that son of a gun did it again but man now it’s I think uh yeah
10 years in February which is congratulations wow yeah yeah Josh will you tell us about your path to Mad TV what that experience was like for you yeah I mean it was very similar to Seth I I came out of uh boom Chicago in Amsterdam and I met Ike Baron Holtz over
There um a very funny actor and great writer and he and I moved to he had moved back to LA uh a year before me and then I moved here and we uh put up a two-person show um that was pretty good I think it was
Really funny um and we knew we were friendly with um Nicole Sullivan who was sort of not I don’t think she was an original uh Mad TV member but like year two or year three and she uh brought the casting director and said you have to see this
Show and so from that show Ike and I both got sort of in-person auditions at Mad TV and then were hired sort of together as a team um and then I only did a couple years there but then managed to Parlay that into the last season of That 70 show which is somewhat
Um yeah there are people that I’ll run into and they’ll be like I hate you you stole Eric’s girlfriend and I’m like I it’s that’s no it’s his name is Topher he went to go do do Spider-Man 2 I didn’t steal anybody’s anything like I
And I should note I am one of those people yeah like wears his team Eric shirt all the time which is very I was team Eric before you got that part that’s not something I started um and yeah so sort of that’s my path and then since then I’ve sort of
Been cobbling it together with uh gigs here and there and uh if I said I wasn’t jealous of the consistency in longevity of Seth’s career I would be lying but um but I’m not alone out here sort of trying to find the next thing and now
He’s always been I have to say he’s always been incredibly supportive he’s the best best brother in the world and now now I got a podcast so at least there’s that if nothing El I will say I mean I we were you know uh we were chatting over on that podcast with you
Guys and you I think you probably are intensely closer for having done a podcast um basically since it seems like you were essentially strangers before you started finally learned Sophie’s name yeah but Josh and I were talking recently and this is uh this is authentic you know we are so close
Obviously you can tell you know we have spent our whole lives being incredibly close but we’ve also been on the opposite Coast for almost two decades and having a podcast has been the most I the part I did not see coming was how nice it is that we’re spending an hour
Together every week it’s been so sweet I think sometimes men male friends like don’t talk well you know Josh and I will chat through a week but like it’s actually been really special to have that time yeah built in time Sophie did you notice that they said just one hour a
Week I was literally about say I think pen didn’t anticipate that he would be spending so much time with us I think he might have made a different decision what are we doing wrong what is going on Josh I did want to ask you just
To follow up um on That 70s Show because I do think that’s a that’s a tough I would imagine a tough position to be in to come take over like he was sort of the lead I know it was an ensemble show but in a way he was kind of the lead of
The show um just what was that like to step in on like the last season of an established show what was that like for you on set what was that like it was it was great um everyone was so nice everyone was so welcoming it also it
Wasn’t like I was stepping into like a new lead position like I was a new side character um and um they had that show down to a science in the last year like they would they would camera block it with uh standin so I want to say Monday
Everything would get camera blocked um so Tuesday you’d go in and you would know in this scene you’re going to start on the couch you’re going to move to the washing machine and you could change things up but we probably worked 24-hour work weeks um and we would tape on
Friday night and it was an event like it was such a a popular show um you know everyone I was working with was a millionaire multi- times over and I feel like uh was happy about that and where everyone was comfortable and nice and um you know Ashton Kutcher’s dressing room
Had been turned into a poker room it was a time oh wow in the world when everything was poker and poker was so popular and you would you know you’d go up after you were done for a show and maybe there’d be a couple more scenes
And like a young Rumor Willis would be playing poker with like whoever was there hanging out it was just it was really yeah it was an event and uh it was great to be a part of and also coming off of Mad TV that had an audience that felt very often like it
Was sort of cycled through and it’s like hey do you want to see a TV show versus that 70 show people would come dressed up people would propose uh people like get a group of their friends together and uh after the show you know we would sign autographs and it was very uh
Tactile with the audience and they really loved it and you could really feel that in the room I don’t know if this is apocryphal or not but the last scene of that 70 show uh was New Year’s Eve 1979 I was not in that episode or I
Wasn’t in that scene and they sort of apologized man I was like it’s fine it’s I’m not too precious about this and it was a very hard scene for the cast to get through because they had done this show for so long and it’s emotional when
You get to the end of a show and um so we were trying to shoot the scene people were crying uh people were stumbling over lines we kept having to reset we kept having to have makeup come out and we were finally getting it they had sort
Of hit a stride and it was like this is the shot this is the tap and a phone rang and uh Ashton Kutcher was there and de Moore was there and it was demore and she took the call and the director was like what she like her phone Rag and she
Was like yeah hello um and it was like and we had to do it again and it was such a it was amazing it was really amazing I mean no disrespect to me but it it was a pretty you can’t they didn’t have phones in 1979 got to cut it out
Yeah it’s a pretty high level Hollywood uh Flex to take that call and that situation David and I were driving through Burbank the other day and I was seeing all these Studios and I was thinking about the all the scenes and shots that are outside of studios and
Then I was just thinking someone has to location scout and that in itself sounds like I would if I had to location scout for a movie I I’d quit I’m like it’s too exhausting already and that’s one like one millionth of what it takes to make a
Show or let alone a film it sounds so complicated I’m I’m shocked that anything ever gets made just when you’re describing like the blocking of That 70s Show I’m like yeah that sounds nice that that sounds it was so nice and also it was such a it was such an event and it
Like people loved it so much that I still like I’ll go to that CBS Radford lot and security guards will still remember me and they’re like oh man yeah it’s not it’s not like it used to be because it was fun it brought something fun to a lot uh and yeah people were
People were psyched for it it was yeah it was a lot of fun I was uh I’m grateful to have had that opportunity and probably wish I was better in the show but I’m not going to watch it again to to see if uh what the people say
About me is it’s real like maybe I didn’t know what to do with my arms I didn’t know what to do with my arms that’s one of the reasons I had to start my show at the desk I was so bad doing a monologue I always somebody said it
Always looks like you’re trying to land a plane we always ask if you could go back to your 12-year-old self what would you say or do and then I think maybe I also want to hear what do either one of you recall about the other at that age and
Is there something that you would have said to the other one as well at that I when we knew we were doing this I always come back to this haunting memory of the first time I feel like I got invited to a party and again because I
Was so close with my parents I was trying to figure out what to wear and I feel like I it was the wrong time to involve my parents because my dad felt like very strongly that I should wear like nice pants and a a sweater and then
It just everybody was was dressed the way like I it was like I thought it was like semiformal and it was just in a a friend’s basement and I so I think one thing I wouldn’t want to say much to my 12-year-old Sons because I’m always
Worried that like he did get me here yeah but I would say don’t overthink it I wish you could just tell kids don’t overthink it yeah yeah you’re ultimately your first instinct is probably your best Instinct and I think that kids so much of the thinking I did was about how
Other people were going to perceive me instead of how I perceived myself so that was the biggest thing yeah I think I and I still to this day sort of have this hangup but I think I would say don’t it doesn’t have to be perfect and like learn almost fail intentionally and
Learn to love it I feel like I’m so afraid of something not working and sort of I I don’t ship the work a lot of times I don’t I don’t put things out there because I hold on to them because I want them to be better and I feel like now I’ll
See I’ll see people that like just put put stupid things on YouTube and it’s like you watch them and it’s like this is terrible that’s terrible that’s terrible that’s awful and then you’re like yeah but now they’re like they’ve got this show and it’s good and it’s
They weren’t afraid to put something out that the world could look at and critique and you know yeah it wasn’t good because you were just learning uh at that time I’m so impressed with nothing impresses me more than a standup that delivers the joke that fails and no one seems to enjoy it
More than the standup yeah um whereas that just would feel awful to me and I would love to sort of I’d love to have more exper experience with with failing and not caring um or learning from it like not caring is not the right thing it’s just
Learning from it and not taking it personally I do say that any Young when young people ask me about getting into comedy and I think it’s probably true of everything which is it’s failure is easy when you’re younger you think it’s harder because you’re so worried about
Your peer group but the longer you wait to try something the harder it gets to take that step true I always am like you know you want to be a comedian Go on stage wherever go like do a high school talent night do a college cuz you’ll
Bomb and you’ll learn more from bombing than you ever will from watching people succeed watching someone someone’s finished product is not an education yeah that’s a great Point what would you say to each other if you could I mean I I mean I would I mean if
I could go back in time I’d tell Josh like don’t get the the perm did you get a perm it wasn’t it wasn’t a perm it was a Vavoom from L’Oreal what is that they had a poster oh what is it it’s a perm all right there’s a video element to this show
Right yes yeah just look at my hair and look at sesha hair and see if the perm see if the perm that I had a long time you think your hair looks better than mine now cuz you got a Ved I think that it it gave me a little more bounce still then
Then I hope if you could go back in time you would tell me to get the Vavoom Yeah well yeah I think that’s fair enough if you could come back to me at 12 with that hair and be like get the Vavoom I would do it in a heart I’m so
Jealous it’s the best we used to both have great hair we there’s pictures of us where I’m like where when did it all come off when did the wheels come off oh yeah I think it’s when when you decided not to go with me to the hair cutters at
Maram in maram and get this get that treatment or maybe I just have the hair of a man with three children could be could maybe when you delivered a baby in the lobby yeah be that you should have seen oh my God the the day before Lobby baby full
Head there was no gap between my uh top my eyebrow bottom of my hairline a thank you guys so much for coming on thank you what a delight a delight spend the afternoon with you guys you can listen to family trips wherever you get your podcasts and you
Can follow Seth Seth Meers and Josh JH D Meyers David you can hear and are you being recorded too yes and yes you’re about to be a father how are you feeling I feel uh extremely excited yeah he’s like get me off this recording device I think now you know why he recused himself right if that’s the best he
Could do excited I see off the podcast I am DAV is such a sweet the moon he’s such a sweet personable guy it’s funny that that that um that the mic changes him like that yeah the mic the camera he completely I tried to film uh us finding
Out the sex of the baby and he just cuz I wanted to have that as a memory like us finding out if it was a girl or boy and multiple times we I had to stop recording because he was like I I can’t I don’t feel like I can be
Myself this moment yeah I do like I do like his self-awareness to know that that was a very special moment and it’s better to be authentic than get a bad David on tape yeah it’s true yeah whereas I’m like this is content yeah content baby equals content I mean
Is it crazy to cast a different David for just The
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