The MacGruber Episode

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast. We're doing a Takeover today, courtesy of Jormat Coney, who is joined by his two collaborators on MacGruber, Will Forte and John Solomon. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us.

the song. Will, you should probably sing the song. MacGruber! Are you tired of hearing about?

just the Lonely Island? We took over the podcast! MacGruber!

your collaborators? Yes, I do. One is the incomparably funny writer, director, friend, John, Johnny Solomon, who I've worked with forever. He's a brilliant man and he's got a hot, hot bod. He has collaborated with me for years on the hit show MacGruber on Peacock.

this is taking too long. And then also Will Forte. God damn it. Yeah, Forte's, here too. It's really good.

your journey to SNL. Yes. So John Solomon, hot bod, in the gym daily. Oh boy. Met him early, Otz.

Yeah, we met in, I think it was our sophomore year of college, right? Yeah. We had two friends, Anne Hutchinson and Blunden back then, and Lisa Olay, and I don't know Lisa's current last name, but they were both friends who each knew us and said, we think you guys would really like each other. So they parent trapped us and we all took a history class together, which at UCLA is like 500, 400 people. So then we took a discussion group together, which is more like 20 people.

be friends? What about the two of you? Is it just because you guys have the exact same vibe and have always had basically the exact same vibe of person? Yeah, I think we're just two generally.

kind of weird, offbeat people. Hot bods. Hot bods. Hot bods. I don't know if you know this, because this is only going from here up, but John has like award-winning calves.

but so does Seth, but interestingly, so does Seth. Yeah, Johnny and I, when we were walking.

around New York City, hot time, summer in the city, if we were both in shorts, car accidents.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can jump really high, right, John? Because you were a volleyball.

guy. Yeah, but I do get jealous of Seth's calves. He does have very big calves. I do. Yeah.

still, are you still running? I'm still running. We'll throw some calf shots on the show notes. Cool. But I want to ask a question.

Not me. Not me. No, I was in film school. Will, well, no, Will, you had a little trajectory before you got into comedy, a little financial trajectory. Oh, I don't know.

my dad was like a money manager slash stock analyst. So I thought, oh, I'll just do what my dad did. So I started working at Smith, Barney, Shearson as a cold caller. But never, you know, I didn't really take any acting classes. I took a drama class my sophomore year of high school, never did any plays.

I was the exact opposite. I grew up in the theater. I don't think my father ever expected me to do one normal thing except for theater. And I got a job at his theater one summer, and I almost got fired because I made a dunce cap for myself that had the word focused on it really big. And I would walk around to people and I would say, Hey, is that a personal call?

I feel like you should have got fired. Now, Will, so you lose some pension funds for some old ladies during your financial times. Sure, sure. I know you left that out. And then, John, you graduate college and what are you doing?

filmmaker? Before I went to SNL, I am in an ER filming trauma cases that come in with people extremely badly injured. What was the penis one? A guy was in a leather pocket. So wait, hold on.

Before we explain the penis one, and obviously our listeners want us to get to that. So you're basically making sort of training videos, like videos of traumatic injuries that will be used later for the purposes of education for doctors? Yes, exactly. Exactly. And do the people sign a?

waiver after? They do. Because I would imagine, most of the time they're not conscious. My job.

is to convince them to sign the waiver. Usually they do, because I think they're kind of excited that they got filmed. Yeah, famous. But you were also on the camera, right? Yeah, yeah.

them to sign, would you say stuff like, this is going to break you, baby? That's right. That's.

right. Listen, when people see that schlong getting operated on. All right, so let's hear about the.

penis injury, you filmed. Quickly, the penis injury was a guy working in construction. This was in another country. I was in China, and I was filming a guy who got brought in because a construction wall that he was working on fell on him and ripped his urethra. And so I followed his treatment,

and it was pretty intense. Now, wait, so did this news break from China and they're like, we got to get you on a plane? Or were you already there and it happened? Yeah, there's like a bat.

phone for penis injuries that I get flown all over the world. Now this is a dumb question,

and I'm sure you get asked all the time. Is that phone shaped like a penis or not? It's like,

they backed it off and they just did banana. They just did a banana phone.

But everybody in the business knows what it's supposed to be. They know. So you're doing great. You're living the dream over in mainland China, getting close ups.

And the day I was, do you remember where we were, Will, when I was hired for SNL? I was trying to figure out if I was going to go to film in a military hospital in Iraq, and I was at lunch with Will and a man named Mike Shoemaker, called Will. Do you remember that, Will?

I don't remember. Oh, oh, I kind of do. Where were we eating lunch?

We were, we were in Santa Monica and I was freaking out because I didn't know if I wanted to do this, because I was too scared. And Will gets a phone call, talks on the phone and just kind of throws out to me, oh, you're hired for SNL anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Will, I will say my memory of this, Will, is you showed up at SNL. At this point, you were coming out of the groundlings. You had wonderful sketches in your first four years of the show, but you also were always banging the drum for your friend, John Solomon, who you thought should join the writing staff. And, you know, now it seems crazy.

But also, John, and John will even say this, didn't have a ton of credits or anything like that. So he, I mean, you know, obviously anybody who knows him knows how special he is as a writer and comedic force. But at that point, we'd done the movie awards together, the MTV Movie Awards. And before this, what other stuff had you done, John?

Comedy writing, just stuff with you. But then at that time, I know there was a demand from.

Lauren for more penis injury sketches. Yeah, we had sent them that tape. And it should know, you're like, what could be funny about that? You guys cut it together with some really good music.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Benny Hill music.

It really is like, though, I mean, there were so many places where you would just have to go, just trust me on this guy, I'm telling you. And then, you know, begrudgingly, John would get hired and then become the indispensable person at this, you know, now, obviously, you know, everyone knows what they got in John. But like, it's great. It's, it's, John, you're a very special, special writer.

Well, thank you.

And actor. He's a great actor, too.

He's a great actor. You can see what John Solomon looks like in a very funny. I think you should leave sketch where he is upset that Tim Robinson doesn't know how to drive a car. That's right. That's one of my favorite recent John Solomon performances.

Thank you so much.

Also, the the boss sketch is also very funny.

Yes, thank you. With Patty Harrison, which is very good as well.

Thank you, guys.

Now, Will, when you started the show, were you using John as a resource, even though he was not a writer in the show? Was he somebody that you would talk about sketches with?

Oh, all the time.

And so then John joins the show. And do you form a friendship with the arm pretty quickly?

We met John as the Lonely Island like professionally, because I would imagine socially was maybe earlier, but hanging out at the movie awards was the first time we really got to like get into John's comedic brain. That's right.

Yeah, we all kind of knew each other before SNL. Yeah. Because we would go to Channel 101..

Oh, that's right.

In fact, I remember the year that Andy was considered as an actor, I remember I was on hold, like they were not sure they were going to bring me back. So I was like, I remember us all kind of going through Andy's packet and kind of helping him, as I was, like, you know, hanging in the wind, not sure if I was gonna get brought back. And there was a little piece of me that's like, this guy, I'm helping this dude get in here. He's probably gonna take my slot.

That does speak to what a generous soul you are, Will. And also...

I didn't want to bring it up. But I mean...

Yeah, you're cool, dude. You're cool, dude. Being on hold, I spent a summer on hold at SNL. And it is the weirdest thing in the world where they basically said, we're not gonna fire you outright. But we are gonna spend the summer seeing if we can beat you.

Yeah.

God, how is it actually said to you? Like, no, but like, it makes sense. They're like,

we just we're kind of on the fence about you. And we're gonna have a ton of auditions, like you can sort of do the math.

It might have been the same summer, because that summer was a really big summer of that stuff, where they were trying to figure out which way. And in fairness, like, yeah, the show was a little there. It was in that post-Will Ferrell zone where they were still trying to find their group. And then they found it when Andy and you guys came on. And Kristen and Bill and Jason and, you know, all the members of that cast in the years before were fantastic.

There was a very nice cohesion. And speaking of that cohesion, one night, it's January of 2007.. Someone has an idea. This should be noted. We're two decades post the show MacGyver.

Oh, man.

It's 07.. You must have felt confident. nobody else at the table was going to have a MacGyver inspired sketch that way.

Why do you hate nostalgia? You know what I mean? Like, maybe it was the right time.

I love nostalgia. I just like pointing out. I don't want the listeners today being like, oh, well, of course they're doing a MacGyver thing. Nobody was thinking about MacGyver, but everybody remembered MacGyver.

Did we talk about this in the Jeremy Pippin episode? Because if we did, then I feel like Will or John should explain how. Well, it was a bad pitch. That's what I'll say. It was a really bad pitch in the room by me.

Jorma, I believe we spoke about how you kept pushing it and they kept saying no.

Yes. I mean, the Jeremy Pippin episode was maybe the fourth or fifth time that he had come to us trying to see if we would write it. Because Jorma would be in writing with Andy and Keeve all the time. Then we started hanging out. He would come write with me and John every once in a while.

Did it bother you that MacGyver's brother would have a different last name? Was that one thing that was frustrating to you?

First of all, it was his stepbrother. So that solved that logic problem. There were no holes logically.

So his mom divorced a guy named MacGyver and then remarried a guy named MacGruber?

The best part of this was how much more confusing it got when we eventually did a sketch with Richard Dean Anderson, who is then MacGyver, and then we revealed that MacGyver is MacGruber's dad. So it got progressively more confusing as things went on.

And did we say that his name was MacGruber MacGyver?

Yeah, that's his.

Yes, MacGruber was the first name.

But anyway, we basically once... But in fairness to us, I think that the way you were pitching it at first was that it was just a live sketch and that it was doing all these elements just in a live sketch in front of the audience. So finally, he's pitched it enough. We just said, he's just going to keep pitching this until we do it. So might as well write it.

And every other digital short was not brought to the table. So this was very different. And, to be fair, this wasn't a digital short. These were like its own standalone things. It was always like in threes, as Will said, MacGruber is trying to defuse a bomb.

I feel like it got to the end. We were pleasantly surprised it did a little better than we thought it would. And it didn't... I don't think that we got to the end of it and thought, that was a fucking hit. I think it was just like, oh, that went better than we thought.

Yeah, the first one, and again, I think it's one of the problems with the things that recur, is the audience doesn't know what to expect yet. So they're sort of learning for the first one, and they only get excited for the second one, when no one was saying, oh, great, a MacGruber. on the first MacGruber. It does play kind of soft. It is dog shit, pubes, and then a bucket of bum.

semen. Right? Yeah. Classy. That's right.

forth. The thing that you're talking about, Seth, of. just the first time you see a sketch that's eventually going to become a reoccurring sketch, we did have an advantage of breaking these into three, because there's a theme song every time. So even on the first time it aired, there were still three of them that were granted very short. But you're like, okay, we're going to see another one of these.

know if you guys will have a memory for this. Do you remember anything else? the three of you wrote together that had aired pre-MacGruber? Did, I don't think, did we? Falconers?

Falconers? Because we sort of take up that mantle after Leo and Alan.

Right. Those are Slovin and Alan originally.

Yeah, actually, we might have written. Slovin and Alan were the two people who I wrote the Falconer with. In fact, Slovin was the person who actually came up with the Falconer. He was the Jorma of the Falconer. But yeah, then they moved on after a couple seasons at the show.

Maybe not made it on. We had definitely written before that. Yeah. Because we wrote a lot of things that we were writing for like 13 hours. that never got picked.

Now, Will, I know you to be incredibly detail-oriented. I love your writing so much. Your writing style to me is so divergent from the way I write. And yet I am in awe of the results. The funny thing about you saying no to Jorma multiple times about MacGruber is all the things you said yes to, you know, right?

Oh, yes.

It was a Luge sketch.

Yeah.

And you wrote it during the Winter Olympics, maybe the oh, I'm going to get it wrong. Maybe the 02 Winter Olympics. And I just remember it was two guys and there was a song called Luge Yourself. And it was two lugers who were maybe breaking up. And it didn't go.

Were we luging as we're having the conversation? Were we luging?

I think you were luging during the sketch. Yeah. Okay. In April, you came into my office and said, we're thinking about resubmitting Luge Yourself. And I remember saying, but wasn't that for the Winter Olympics?

That's so forte.

It was great. And then I even heard that person, which I think was T. Sean Shannon, was like, it's April, man.

Never take no if it's funny.

I mean, that's the thing. It's like, it's a hard job. You run out of ideas.

It is our job.

And then when there's something that was like, so perfect for the show, like illusion.

Can I give Will just a quick compliment, which is that I have never been around a person who has cared more about comedy and the detail of comedy than Will Forte. There was a sketch that we wrote. It's the date sketch where you're doing impressions and it keeps revealing that you guys are like, no, you're actually Australian. And then maybe you're a spy. that goes on and on.

100 percent. Just dedicated. John, I feel like you knew the way and probably to this day know the way. Will writes more than anyone. Yes.

Well, I did, but I didn't realize that there were other ways until I got to SNL.

You didn't think that every sketch had to be 15 hours of writing?

Well, you know, comedy sketch writing was something that Will knew and I didn't. And he, you know, definitely taught me everything I know about sketch writing. And then I would go, you know, on writing night, Will and I would be working for not exaggerating six, eight hours on a sketch and someone would go in their office and come out, you know, three hours later.

What are you doing? Lazy fuckers. And I started to go like, oh.

Did you feel betrayed because Will had been working there for four years? Were you ever like, so you didn't want to tell me. there were kind of other ways?

Honestly, it was like, oh, well, this is why Will's sketches are Will's sketches. Like. this level of attention is what makes a Will sketch. And I think people, you know, felt the same way.

Support for Lonely Island comes from Babbel. Jorm, you're a world traveler.

I am. I'm in Finland right now, as we speak.

I feel like every time I'm looking for you, you're in another country. And look, you can walk around town and you can maybe learn how they say hello, how they say goodbye, how they say, sure, you're in the bike lane. Because I know you like to just set up shop in the middle of a bike lane. I do what I want. Jorm, there's an easier way, though.

we can converse in the native tongue. Treat yourself to 60% off on me, Seth.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, because here's a special limited time deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash lonely. 60% off. at babbel.com slash lonely. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash lonely.

Moi, moi. That's goodbye and finish.

Support comes from Game Time. Jorm, you love a concert.

I can't stop loving concerts. Thanks, Seth.

One of the greatest concerts I ever saw in my life. You know what it was?

Was it my brother's band?

It was the Lonely Island concert.

Oh, I like those guys too.

Yeah, it was fantastic. And if you love going to concerts or other events, you know, I can tell you one of my favorite things to do is using Game Time, because it makes getting tickets for concerts and events faster, easier. Even if you don't buy tickets right away, prices on the Game Time app actually go down the closer it gets to showtime. So for guys like you and I, who maybe make our decision late in the game, all of a sudden an evening, an evening opens up for us.

Yeah, which it never does. It's a swamp.

Yeah, but then all of a sudden you're like, look, what are we going to do? We're just going to stay at home, watch TV, or we get to go to the Game Time app. And look at that. One of the bands we love is doing a concert locally. We should go check it out.

Come on, everybody, it's Game Time!

Very well done. John, do you remember an idea Will had for a sketch other than Benjamin Franklin that wasn't ever going to work, that he wouldn't let go of?

It wasn't ever going to work.

Or one that maybe didn't work, that if it was up to you, you would have said, I think we can move on to the next one. But he had the siren call of trying to continue to make it work.

The thing that's coming to mind is potato chip, which did work. But when Will pitched it to me, he just said, I just have this idea about this guy who wants to eat a potato chip.

It's so funny. By the way, hear that. And then, if you haven't, go watch Potato Chip and just realize that if somebody gave you that pitch and told you to write a billion sketches, you would never have any overlap.

Do you know what's crazy? There has been some talk about how long it takes me to write sketches. And that was one where it was like seven in the morning. We had been up all night. I hadn't written anything, yet.

Yeah.

Right. That was. that was a pretty quick one, from what I remember.

Oh, wait, wait. Okay. John, how long did it actually take?

Well, I think that that's accurate. But I do remember, like the previous night, you would mention every few hours, you would mention it to me. I just kept going like, I don't, I don't, I obviously, I know you could make it funny. I have no idea what, what it is like. And then it was just, he obviously had an idea.

I will say every time you went to table for punching up scripts, the more normal the script was, the longer you tended to work on it. And when you would come in with a forte driven sketch, and I remember doing this with you in particular, when you were running your table, Seth, it would be like, go through it. And the suggestions would be like, I guess you could change that part if you wanted to. But you know, it's, yeah. But like the logic was so tightly its own.

That most people are just like, yeah, that I think you're good to go. That is what it is.

There were some, and I don't think one is right or wrong, but like there are some writers who really use the table. Like, Hey, I feel like I could be this. I feel like it'd be that. And it was like, I feel like you guys would bring in a completed house of cards. And the idea would be like, can we switch this Jack of clubs out for three diamonds?

Masterpiece.

You had submitted, it's a masterpiece. You had submitted gentlemen, Franklin, a good many times. And then Solomon came to my office one day and said, Hey, what do you think about some resubmitting, gentlemen, Franklin? And do you remember what I said to you, John?

Yeah, I absolutely do. You said, well, it kind of flatlined.

The last time it had been at the table and it flatlined. Yes. And then it was like a cartoon, because I then, just like, heard your steps going down the hallway. And then I heard like, yeah, like this all of a sudden is in my doorway being like flatline.

Do you guys remember when we wrote, it was all three of us, and we wrote the sketch where you play a naked sushi platter, you know, that thing in, in Japan, where there's occasionally a lot of nude women in particular. I'm assuming they have men too, but this was Forte as a nude man with sushi all over his body for a party. And he's proposing to his girlfriend, who is, I believe, Scarlett Johansson. And he has wasabi under his balls and there's a ring in it. And I remember writing it, for, it felt like, honestly, we wrote it for 10 hours.

Why are we spending this much time on this?

But I was also like, well, this is one of the funniest things I've ever worked on.

So I don't remember that one.

Oh, that's even better. You don't remember that one.

Two things I remember. One time I heard Forte in an office spending a lot of time trying to decide if it was funnier to say don't or do not. And another time, I can't remember the sketch, but you wrote the word both with an L in it. Both. And that's not what the sketch was about, but you kept saying both.

Yeah.

And it was not, I remember it was at the table and it wasn't really playing. But every time you said both, like every comedy writer in the room, just was so tickled. And it certainly wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to sustain a sketch. But I think we were all just sort of in awe of this, like tiny piece of just like, I don't know, artifice on top of the sketch of both.

Can we talk about, though, that the level of comedy in the sketch writing didn't just stop at the sketch writing. We were right across the hall from Forte as The Lonely Island, right? So our little place was right next to, like the big table where all the table reads happened. And then, right across from us, was Forte. So there were moments where you would be so unbelievably frustrated, because I believe, I don't know like how this happened, but as an example, John bet Forte that he could only listen to one song for an entire year.

Will, will you do me a favor?

I want you to read it the way you want it performed, and then we can decide later if it's worth keeping it. But if you go into the chat, Kevin has found Hockey Date, a sketch. the three of you wrote for Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Do you have any memory of Hockey Date, Will?

I don't.

Okay, so I'm going to read Julia, and you read Will, okay?

I'm first on here. That means it was my idea, apparently.

I think so.

Solomon, do you have any memory of Hockey Date?

Very vague.

Okay.

Okay, I have it up. I have it up.

Okay, here we go. Hockey Date, open on Hockey Arena. Will and Julia, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, take their seats. Will is wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey with the Indian head logo. Thanks for inviting me.

Pam, calm down. Relax. You can just call it a game.

Okay, well, this is my first game.

See? That wasn't so hard.

I guess I'm a little nervous because I heard sometimes people get hit by hockey pucks.

Are you going to do that all night, Pam? Because if you are, I'm going to ask you to go home right now.

What did I do?

It's not a hockey puck. It's just a puck. You don't have to throw the word hockey in front of everything. We're at a hockey game. It's understood.

I'm sorry. I'll try harder.

Yeah, I hope you do.

So how'd you become a Blackhawks fan?

Well, I grew up with a pet hawk and it was black.

Really?

Pam, I grew up in Chicago. That's why I'm a Blackhawks fan.

This is going to sound silly, but I always thought the Blackhawks logo is a little, you know, politically incorrect.

No, you're right. You're right. That does sound silly. Sounds like something a silly little girl would say.

So you don't think it's racist to use the face of a Native American as your mascot?

Racist? It's a tribute. We have the utmost respect for the Blackhawk tribe and we would never demean them. Oh, here they are. Woo, woo, woo, woo.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Could that cheer be any more offensive?

Well, I guess the answer is yes, since there is not even one shred of offensiveness in there.

Chanting howl over and over.

You're acting like a real jerk.

How can you say that?

Oh, so you use the word howl and it's fine. But when I use it, suddenly I'm a racist. I am a curator for a Native American museum, so I think I know what is or isn't offensive. Hey, fat ass lady, bring me some candy. By the way, Pam, I'm going to need some ducats for the candy.

You're so... I'm not paying for your candy.

Then you are banned from my Native American museum.

I don't believe you're a curator of anything. I mean, name me one fact about Native Americans.

I'll name three, Pam. One, Native people use every part of the animals they kill, Pam. Two, not one morsel is wasted in the process, Pam. Three, that includes the scalp, Pam. If you ask me, it's a real lesson in conversation, just like this date.

That's supposed to mean?

It means that because of your level of intelligence, I'm able to conserve a lot of brain power when talking to you.

How dare you?

There you go again. What the hell? You and your frigging double standards make me sick.

It's not the same thing.

You know, there's a movie I think you should watch sometime. It's called Dances with Wolves, and I think it would do you a lot of good to see it. In fact, I'd be very interested to see it with you, because I've never seen it, and I hear it's quite good. And after that, maybe we can rent Ghostbuster. That's also on my list.

Okay, that's it. I'm leaving. You're a terrible person.

Pam, wait. Look, I've had a really, really, really wonderful time with you tonight. And just because you're ignorant, super boring, and a smidge above butt, ugly, and your breath smells like cow shiz, it is awful. You have the worst breath. Anyway, just because of all those four things that I hate about you, doesn't mean that I don't want to do you a bunch of times tonight in the back of my car.

What do I say? What do I say? I say I just found love in the most peculiar place. I've honestly been revolted by everything you've said to me tonight. But then when I tried to leave, I couldn't.

What do I say? I say get out of my face. You're coming on way too strong. All I want is a little romance here, not some ho bag. So goodbye, Backseat, Bertha or Pam, or whatever your name is.

Cut to Kristen Wiig. It's Pam.

Great. So I guess that temporary penis tattoo still works. See you later, other Pam. So Pam, you ever seen Ghostbusters? Because your tremendous rack makes the ghost in my pants want to bust through my darker slacks.

Will and Wiig make out Ghostbuster theme.

How did that not get picked?

Wow. I mean, it went.

I think it went to dress.

What? I think it maybe did. Did it?

I mean, based on everything I know about a dress audience at SNL, they were very upset right away at how mean Will was being to beloved Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

I'm excited that Julia was like, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. Let's do that one.

That is horribly offensive and pretty fun to read.

It was real top to bottom. How quickly into MacGruber, the sketch, do you decide that the theme song is going to be an integral part of it?

That was from Jump, right?

I don't know that we ever realized in the first one. Like, I just remember thinking, yeah, it'll be a good framing device to have the theme song. But I don't know that I ever thought like, just everything was a surprise about the first one. It was just like, oh, yeah, OK, we'll do this. We'll do this.

The theme song isn't changing in the first one. You're right. I think it's shorter each time.

It's just getting shorter each time.

But it's not actually giving you story changes. So, yeah.

Did you guys rewatch it today?

Yeah.

I didn't. I didn't.

I was surprised how tiny the dog shit was.

Wait, who wrote the theme song? I forget. I mean, I think we all wrote the lyrics.

No, but Catrice actually made the song. Yeah. Shout out to Catrice. And rest in peace. She was the unbelievably talented person who also did Dickens Box with us.

She was the best. Chase Spines. Do you remember what the second MacGruber was? Because it's on my rewatch list of one of my favorite MacGrubers to watch. And one of my favorite Will Forte performances of all time.

Thank you. I do remember that it was the alcohol one.

That's the second one that aired? Is the alcohol one?

Yeah.

Wow. I love that one.

MacGruber, making life-saving inventions out of household materials. MacGruber, getting in and out of ultra-sticky situations. MacGruber, he's 15 years sober. MacGruber!

All right, everyone keep it together, okay? We're going to get out of here, and we are going to get out of here. We need to focus up. 10 seconds!

What do we do, MacGruber? Casey, hand me that beaker. You got it, MacGruber.

April, I need exactly four ounces of tomato juice. On the way, MacGruber.

Casey, hand me that celery.

Celery, check.

Hey, does anybody see any Tabasco sauce?

MacGruber, are you making a drink?

What's up?

I feel like a dress. there was a way longer version. And I kind of wish I could get my hands on it. You were just kind of eating a hamburger as it was falling apart, and answering Molly's questions. And she was off camera, and it's one of my faves.

Yeah, Will, one of the best food-eating actors. Like any scene where there's something that Will has to eat, like Vinny Videcci, right? He used to just eat spaghetti.

Oh, yeah.

And the way you eat that burger is really expert.

I mean, I think Brad Pitt's our greatest dramatic eater, and Forte's our greatest comedy eater. Thank you. He's the Brad Pitt of comedy eating.

Is Brad Pitt a well-known dramatic? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

I feel like, yeah, he's kind of the guy. You can probably find a supercut of Brad Pitt eating. I feel like the first time I noticed it is maybe Ocean's Eleven. He's kind of eating throughout that movie in a way that's really fun to watch.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Then you have sort of Jeremy Piven, and you have Molly Shannon. Then I feel like Seth Rogen shows up. He's sort of tailor-made for MacGruber. He's close enough in our age, has probably the same nostalgia, for MacGyver, is in on the joke. Another one I really enjoy watching, and speaks to how quickly MacGruber heightened to a different thing.

I don't. I mean, I remember I have an image in my head of what he looked like in the control room, but I can't remember. That was not the plastic surgery one.

It was, yeah.

Oh, it was. Okay, yes. Okay.

This is MacGruber is concerned about aging, and, first of all, the thing I remember about this one that I love so much is, in order to make yourself seem younger, you keep saying things are tight. You keep enthusiastic, saying like, isn't that so tight? Yeah. Isn't it?

It's tight, right? It's so tight.

That's in response to him, turning on Maya and Seth, and calling the mom and dad in front of his new girlfriend, who has gotten tickets. It's wig plays. Wig, who's gotten tickets to a Dave Matthews Band concert.

And so, I think the run of this, the three-act structure of this one, is, maybe the first one. he's wearing a bandana, and then it falls off and you see that his hair is super thinning, right? Yeah. Oh, MacGruber!

He's getting kind of old now, and that makes him uncomfortable. MacGruber! He might go get some work done! MacGruber!

The mine door is sealed. shut, MacGruber! That's not our only problem, MacGruber!

Once this hydrogen meter reaches, critical, this baby's gonna blow!

Okay, this is no time to panic. You're in good hands. I've been doing this all my life. For over 44, excuse me, 37 years. In October, so I'm 36..

Right, time to focus.

Casey, hammer, that copper wire! You got it, MacGruber!

Caleb, that feather!

Gotcha, Groobs! Casey, cup! Right here! Okay, great. Now, if I can just bypass this detonator, I'll-.

Oh, oh! Look behind you! Look behind you! There are things I need back there! Just turn around!

Just whatever you see, whatever you find, just pick them up and give them to me, and- Okay, okay. I found this caulking putty! Here's a battery! Okay, okay. You just hang on to those.

Thank you, though. Two seconds, MacGruber!

Okay, that's more than enough time for me to tie this bandana back on,

and then de-fuse-.

MacGruber!

Second one, all of a sudden. And this is what was so wonderfully absurd about MacGruber, because they're trapped in something, but also in this one, his girlfriend is there. His very young girlfriend.

Just walked in. MacGruber!

Some collagen injections and a buttload of hair plugs! MacGruber! He's never felt better about himself! MacGruber!

I think it's soldered shut! From the looks of this pipe, if we don't work fast,

pretty soon. our bodies are going to be soldered shut, too!

Don't worry, we will get out of here. I have a four o'clock appointment at the Miata dealership, and I do not plan on breaking that. Fifteen seconds! What are we going to do, MacGruber? Okay, first, quick introduction.

Twenty-five, just go with it.

MacGruber, ten seconds! Okay, let me, uh, defuse this bomb here. Check this out.

Mom, hand me that bottle cap. On the way, MacGruber.

Dad, hand me that band-aid.

Okay, son!

Oh, my God, Randy got us tickets to see Dave Matthews in concert tonight! Oh, that's tight!

That's so tight!

Mom, don't you think that's tight?

Dad, isn't that tight?

Come on, you gotta at least think that's a little tight, huh?

No?

Well, I guess Taylor and I are the only ones who think this.

And then, this is what became so fun about MacGruber. Everybody knows how it's going to end. And there was the fun of where, where will the explosion come? You know, at some point, like, it's like a Pop Goes the Weasel situation. You know it's going to happen, but it's like, without the music of the song, Pop Goes the Weasel.

His surgeon got involved, so we flew to South America. MacGruber! Turns out the medical standards are a lot more lax down there. MacGruber! He regrets it with every fiber of his being.

Daisy, hand me that screwdriver.

Here you go, MacGruber.

Caleb, toss me that paperweight.

Okay.

Daisy, hand me that mirror.

Uh, I don't, I don't know, MacGruber.

You want me to diffuse this bomb or not? Yeah, but...

The mirror! Just give him a miracle.

Not so bad.

MacGruber!

It's a completely different tone of Eddie MacGruber, because you're looking in a mirror, and Seth and Maya are super concerned, and it's got sort of like horror music.

Like opera.

Opera. So we all know, the audience knows, that you've gotten some really gnarly plastic surgery done. He's a monster. He's a monster. But then, of course, the genius turn you guys came up with is you turn around, just a disaster.

It's not so bad.

It's not so bad. Hand me that mirror.

Yeah, he's got semi-shitty plastic surgery on the second one, right? And then in the first one, we also establish that he has a 3 p.m. appointment at the Miata dealership or something like where we establish...

He's a midlife crisis.

We establish that that's going to be MacGruber's car when later we make a movie about it.

Oh, I didn't know that there's a Miata reference.

Yeah, that's why he's into Miata. I think that when we were writing the movie, that's how we came up with it.

And I would almost certainly say that I probably pitched it because Miata's were in my... Oh, for sure. I had a college girlfriend who had a Miata. So in the back of my head, it just seemed like a reference that would always come up. I'd always pitch Miata's.

I remember when I was, whatever age, Miata's were a thing. My dad had a friend who had a Miata dealership and my dad said, we can go down and he'll let us take it for a test drive. And I remember driving around Manchester, New Hampshire with my dad in a Miata and thinking without irony, this is as good as it gets, as cool as it gets. This is... I think I felt better that day than I felt any successive day in show business.

By the way, they're really big in stock car racing. I went to randomly a stock car race, you know, like Formula One style. It's this big, cool looking track. And there was like 30 Miata's. They're very easy cars to like soup up and make into stock car racing.

Yeah, I just recently, for the Pangea Network, we auctioned off the car and this guy bought it for 55 grand. And so the car, you know, had been sitting in my backyard, for it was on the lot. Like after we did the show, it had just been sitting there on the lot. So they had it towed to my place and then I had to, you know, do a million different things to get it up and running. And I did several times had to like drive it through the city.

And also you, I mean, I think the biggest detail is you also play McGruder. It's a little bit like seeing Adam West in the Batmobile. Yes. If you're in LA and you see a dude in their car from their show, your first thought isn't they're crushing it.

You're like, oh no, I guess that's all there is.

That's so cool. Look at that. He's driving the car from the show.

I go, no.

It was really fun. So part of the deal was, if the Miata went over a certain amount of money, I would go hand deliver it. And so I went out, they live outside Dallas and I flew out there and actually spent the whole weekend with them, had a really fun time. And we taught his son to drive a stick shift in the Miata that weekend. And we even, I brought the McGruder outfit and we made him wear the clothes.

With a dude from his prop car. By the time you did the plastic surgery, midlife crisis. McGruder, at that point, do you feel like, oh, this is, we love doing these, and this now feels like a hit?

I don't know if I ever felt like it was a hit, but we definitely loved doing it. And the character we were, I remember just sort of falling. I mean, you listen to that Blackhawk sketch and you're like, this is just a Will Forte character. It's just like really shitty, detailed dude being shitty, but it was so fun to write and like, and having, you know, each time there'd be a new game that we were playing with, it was more and more fun to do, I would say.

I would say that it seemed like it was always very surprising. It seemed like every time we did it, it seemed like, oh, that's great. That's probably the last time we'll do that. And then I think it was after the Seth Rogen one, that then it started being a thing where Lauren would actually come to us and say, okay, I want you to do a McGruder. Before it would just be, oh, oh, that'd be a fun thing to, you know, it was kind of on our terms.

And I think that maybe there is a, I don't know, Lauren has this reputation and maybe people think, oh, there's sort of things I bet he liked and sort of things he didn't like. Lauren loved McGruder. I think he loved the thought and craft you guys put into it. And historically he doesn't like runners. He doesn't like a thing that's in a show three times, but he was a huge fan of McGruder.

You guys are awesome.

I love you all. Thanks for the McGruder takeover.

Always fun being with you three, gentlemen. You're three of my favorite people in the world. So love you guys. And, and sorry, sorry. I'm a little, it's the morning here.

Love you. Bye.

Bye guys.

Okay. Goodbye.

Love you guys.