Ron Howard

Frankly indifferent about being Conan O'Brien's friend, you know what?

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

Yes, I can tell that we are gonna be friends. Yello there and welcome to Conan. O'Brien needs a friend. I wanted to start out a little different, so I went with Yello there and that might become a thing.

Yeah, like a Midwestern DJ from the 50s. Yello there, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool.

That's really cool, yes, the cool bar here is exceedingly low. Joined by my compatriots, my confederates, compadres, co-owners. are we co-owners?

What I have stake in this thing? Oh, no, no, not this. no, no, no, no, no.

I bought a 1954 Nash Rambler and we're co-owners. I am satisfied. Yeah, it's an old kind of car. Can you just do a different car?

That I would know, yello.

It's Sonim of Cessian, and Yello, it's Matt Gourley Sona. I just had a very nice experience. I had to go into a jewelry store to have one of my many chain pendants repaired. Why do you have so many chain pendants?

Because Mr. T sends me one like, once a year, Oh, that's cool, and then I feel like, Yeah, you got to wear them. I want co-ownership of that.

So no, I had to have something fixed a little bit. And I went in there. And they were immediately like, Conan, and it's all because of you, what? It's because they're Armenian and they Sona is a hero. I think you're kind of discounting how big I am in the Armenian community. Oh, are we?

Yes, oh, they did say, Where is fussy man? Yeah, which is Armenian for coolest dude ever? Yes, of course. Why just look at my posture?

Anyway, we had a nice exchange and they were very happy that I went to Armenia with you. That is the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, in L.A. especially to have street cred with the Armenians you're in. Yeah, Eduardo's nodding a lot.

Eduardo, your wife is Armenian? Am I correct? Yes, Vonses Yes, check him out. What do you mean? check him out?

He said, How are you? Yeah, Vonses. Oh, I thought you said her name was Vonses. No, her name's Aza. Yeah, I know.

When you said Vonses, no one, everyone listening just assumed that was her name. Oh, no, except Armenian fans, yeah. Of which we have a lot of which. There are two, and they work at a jewelry store right up the street.

VONSES Yeah, but he said, I said Brev, and he said inch pas sec, and I said Lavem, and he went, Whoa, yes, so that's him. Let's not keep it pushing.

I'm hungry. Yes, yes, grebe, grebe, don't do that.

Why? What's the matter? Don't do your fake Armenian, you're doing so well, and it's just a matter of time before you. Matt didn't know it was fake. And I'm fluent.

Yeah, and you do say every now and then I hit a real word accidentally. No, I don't grebe Shtabi, not at all.

Khosh, Khosh, Yeah, Khosh. What dialect do you speak?

I don't like that. I almost fell for it. Do you even know that you asked a real question?

Gor, gor, gor, gor, gor.

Anyway, I think I'm doing well in the Armenian community, and I think if we go community by community, eventually we'll have everybody under our tent. Did they hook you up? Can I go there and get some shit for free? Yes, they did hook me up.

They gave me six pounds of dried apricot. It's rolled up like a carpet.

But I said, you know, we call these back home a fruit roll-up. Yeah, and they said, Why are you speaking in that crazy way? And I said, I'm doing a comedy character and this is a fruit roll-up.

Yeah, and remember then they said, you need to leave Armenia immediately. Yeah, they did. They almost kicked us out of the country, and they also were like, That's not funny, even if we understood what you were doing.

They said We understand the reference now, and it's still not funny.

Don't double down. By now, it's quadruple down because I think I'm on the fourth. Go around a fruit roll-up. But we had a nice bond.

That's nice, and so I do sincerely thank you for hooking me up in the Armenian community. They're very nice people. Well, you know what I mean, this is sincere.

It was your idea to go there, and that always meant a lot to me, so thank you for taking me to Armenia. Well, of course, it was cool. Free trips are the best trips.

Also, it was your homeland. Oh, that's right, that's right. Yeah, that, too. It wasn't a Vegas U-turn, you know?

And what would you consider your ancestral homeland? Matt, Would it be Scotland? I always thought it was Irish, then learned it was definitely Scots-Irish, but now I think I'm mostly English. So let's just go hit all three, you and me.

Huh, buddy, you know what I'm up for it? Okay? So are you in on this trip?

Yeah, yeah, you're paying. well, it's not going to be me that's paying. We're going to find a sponsor.

Oh, okay, okay, I'll totally go for reals, yeah.

We're going to get solo stove to back this.

Do we have to use the solo stove on the plane? We have to fly a plane that's made of solo stoves? They're all welded together, and the plane is constantly on fire, but there's no smoke, yeah.

And it's kind of a jet turbine, exactly if you point it the right way. No, that's my idea that I've had for a while, and I think I've mentioned this, which is I just start talking up a product. A lot. Now. We happen to have a relationship with Solo Stove.

They're not paying for this mention right now. This is a freebie for you guys. Shout out to Solo Stove. But I do think we should start talking about products that we don't have a connection to, agreed.

And then we'll get into bed with them. Yeah, and I mean, like, Apple, where's Apple been right?

Apple's a huge company and this is a cool podcast. Adam, you're, and they need to advertise. Yeah, yeah, because you know what?

Even hardcore Apple fans, if they aren't made aware, yeah, that there's a new Apple phone somehow, through advertising or something, they're not going to know. I need to buy a new desktop.

Get her done. Wait, that's not good. Okay, someone else knows that this is a good that does work, because that's Larry, the cable guy on Cars, who's a Pixar, which is owned by Apple.

No one else made that connection, though. He just sounded like he was having a breakdown. No, he meant to do that. He's the rain man of useless information, that's true.

No, but what I believe is that, look, I'm just going to say it, you know, I got the Apple Watch. I use the Apple phone known as the iPhone. To many fans, yes.

Yes, they make a special one for other regions of the body. And we just lost Apple, but you know who we have, Samsung, and Samsung is great, you know, Samsung is great.

Do we really have Samsung? Oh, we have Samsung a big way. Why are we doing an Apple commercial? I thought about that halfway through Conan's Apple Read, and I got a bad move. Can I say something?

Can I say something? Can I just say something? I love a TV. Let me just riff off the top. This is just I just had this thought.

I don't even, by the way. Does anyone use an Apple phone? No, I haven't seen one in years. Is it called an Apple phone or an if? is it if phone or iPhone? I think it's if phone, right?

No, everyone calls it an Apple phone, everyone does anyway, keep saying it. Those, I mean, it seems like a badly run company with a product no one cares about.

Yeah, here's the thing Samsung, they actually have a Conan channel on the Samsung TVs and it just plays me. This is my wet dream all my life. Well, I'm sorry.

By wet dream, I didn't mean anything gross, I meant a dream that I would have at night, that would make me come.

It's fantastic. Yeah, it's amazing. I don't watch anything else, and sometimes my wife is saying, Oh, you know, I hear Shogun's really good.

And I'm like, who wants that later? More? And her, she's crying and her. She wears a lot of mascaras, you know, and it's just running. Classic. Liza, she's a big god.

Yeah, it's running down her face like Tammy Faye Baker, and she's like, I just heard shogun. I said, Quiet, this is me in 98, I'm killing it.

We have that much kind of power, and when I said that much kind of power, that's not a real sentence. That much kind, that much kind. If I catch myself before you do, that's not a problem.

Hey, I'm going to wrap it up right now, I just want to say yellow to all our listeners. And remember, Samsung's the way to go and if you need a phone, I don't know, I wouldn't waste my money. Okay, don't ever do a conan.

And they do everything. What appliances? Who are we talking about now? Samsung?

Oh, I thought you were talking about Apple. Apple doesn't do shit. Okay, now you're going too far. Oh sorry. What if they're about to buy in?

Oh okay, oh yeah. We've got to leave the door open. What did you think about that? Yeah, I think we should leave the door open. I'm going to leave the door open to crack.

Okay, and say, I think they do make a fine product. Oh, but we love Samsung, we love Samsung.

We love Samsung, but you know, why isn't there room in this world for both? I don't know what that voice is. It's a good yellow for all of you. And what did you say to me?

I can't wait to meet her, I can't wait to meet your wife. I'll be like, Vonces, Vonces, you're more beautiful than I thought, and she'll be like, What are you talking about? Why are you saying you're more beautiful than I thought?

Eduardo's wife Yeah, yeah, you think the Vonces is weird?

You know what, you're way more beautiful than I thought, you know what I've been saying that, so many layers to that.

I've been saying that to women for so many years and I have to say it, not getting a good reaction. No, so many times I say to women, you know, people bring their spouses by and they go, Oh, you're so much more beautiful than I thought, and it's weird.

You're essentially saying, I thought you were ugly prior to seeing me. Yeah, yeah, and it also implies I'm thinking about you a lot, yes.

And think of you as ugly, right? Hey, would you do me a favor? Eduardo? Yeah, tell Vonces.

Tell Vonces I'm very sorry for what I said and I didn't mean it, and I can't wait to meet Vonces. Keep her away from him.

All right, we got to get into it and what a show we have today, what a show we have today. My guest on the podcast is an Academy Award winning director of such movies as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind and Night Shift.

He now has a new documentary on Disney Plus called Jim Henson Idea Man, and it is a must.

Ron Howard, welcome.

You have this reputation of being like, Oh, he's the nicest guy and then you come in here and you take me off.

I'm here, but I'm here, I'm here.

But you've had a level of success where, yeah, you do not need to be here, and I'm appreciative that you're here.

And you said, OK. And we did a bit where you had a stunt arm. And at one point we're talking and I just take out a saw and I saw your arm off and you're screaming. And you were fantastic. And, of course, most people didn't know who I was.

You were, you know, you've been iconic since I don't know, 1965 and beloved and so people. I remember this is back when people would write in with complaints, but people were saying the way you treated Ron Howard. I didn't really saw his arm off.

But we're all right next to each other. And then you and I start to get into this very intense conversation. And I remember people at the table thinking, Wow, it's where Conan and Ron Howard talking about, It's really intense, like, are they talking about film?

What are they talking about? My wife leaned over and she listened, and then she said to the rest of the group Sunblock.

And it was true, it was true, and I was, and you were saying like, Yeah, no, no, here's what I do. I always try to wear a hat, but it's got to be at least a forty five.

And I was like, Yeah, but is there zinc in there? And you're like, here's the deal. It can be problematic.

And we went, we went really deep, and then and of course your your wife was like, Yeah, well, my wife's a redhead.

And Bryce was literally in our arms, so she was maybe maybe a year old. And the dermatologist gives us each our checkup and so forth. And then he, and then he says, you know, you're going to. You're going to have to keep a hat on her, you're going to have to keep her.

And and then she looked at Cheryl and looked at me, and he said, You know, she's very pale, She's pale. Yes, we know, he said. You're not going to have any more kids, are you?

Oh my God, you meant it. Oh my God, yeah, yeah.

And I said, Yeah, and he said, You wear a hat? yeah, do you wear long shirts? yeah.

OK, but what about some days? Do you ever like, walk? how do you get from, like, the car to that? And I said, You know what?

I live on the planet Earth and there's nothing we can do about that because it has a sun, so some sun is going to get to me. And it's like, Well, it's your death. It's like they're afraid you're going to bring down the level of life expectancy for their patients.

They smirch their record. Yeah, it's going to lead to a lawsuit. You mentioned Bryce, who I adore, she's a terrific talent.

Beautiful, you must be very proud of her. You told me that when she came on my show once, it was a very tense moment for you. Why?

These kids are on their own.

You walk your path.

And, and, and, and I and I said, but that's not, I mean, it's a show, it's a live show. I mean, you know, it's. And she said, No, I'm going to do it.

And and and so then she told me it worked, so I know that. And yet when I watched her on the show doing it, I was so edge of my seat still.

Yeah, I had gotten used to it, but but I was, I was, and then it happens and it is you. It was a moment like, and I've heard about it from so many people.

She is sick with a fever. We her. Cheryl and I had to get her to the theater and we weren't sure she was going to be able to even do the show. But of course, it's opening night, so she's doing it, and there's this scene where she's at her father's feet and begging for something.

And she starts crying and we're sitting in like the third row, and it's, you know, it's theater, so people can fake cry and it kind of work, but she's really crying.

Tears are going down her face and it's just like an unbelievable moment for me, coming from a theatrical family and all that. And I looked over and Cheryl's just kind of sitting with her arms crossed, kind of with a little smile on her face, no emotion whatsoever. So we get the intermission.

And I said, Babe, weren't you knocked out by that moment? I mean, you know, there she is, she's got a fever, it's opening night, she's crying real tears on Broadway.

And she said, Are you kidding me? She did that every day of her life when she was 17..

We've all seen that.

You mentioned coming from this family, it's really worth noting that your career improbable in so many ways. Because just on Andy Griffith alone, you could have spent the rest of your life setting up a card table and going to conventions and having that amazing experience. And it's so funny because I'm around, I get to interview so many terrific actors, talking to Walton Goggins the other day, talking to Billy Bob Thornton. Both of them cite the Andy Griffith show as being seminal for them. And I think I understand it because it's character comedy.

Not afraid of a long pause, right? Not afraid of? And I was saying, there are scenes outside the courthouse or in the barbershop that feel like waiting for Godot. And beautiful, like it really does hold up.

Had great success with Danny Thomas and Van Dyke and Andy Griffith show. And for a moment, he was like the comedy producer. But he was there all the time and they were always stressing character, and Andy used to kill jokes if they were, if they were too broad. And he just kept saying The South is plenty funny on its own, without having to reach for it and do slapstick and stuff, you know?

And he didn't like Petticoat, Junction and Hillbilly, not Hillbilly Elegy. That's a movie I directed.

He didn't like Beverly Hillbillies, Beverly Hillbillies, and you know, because they, because, you know, they were doing sketch, basically, yes, and high concept.

He didn't, he didn't like Little Abner, you know, I see, and so as a result, I don't know that. There's that. There have been other single camera shows that kind of held that tone. Maybe real McCoys is a little bit, but they didn't have Don Knotts.

And several times these scenes, the kinds that you're citing, yeah, usually between Don and Andy. Yep.

I remember vividly Aaron Aaron Rubin, our showrunner, coming down and saying, talking to Andy, and then, and then Andy. He always called Don Jesse, yeah, and he was like, Jesse, we're short.

Come on, and at the very last thing of the of the end of the Wednesday night shoot would be the two of them. And they would have just talked about it a little bit. And they'd wind up doing doing one of these, one of these scenes.

They're just such great comedic actors. But just, Oh boy, it's a nice day, sure is, isn't it? Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Yep, and you're watching it and you're thinking, I have this theory that comedy has been increasingly compressed. To the point now that when any series starts, they have to start at the most dramatic moment. And then that's a flash that turns out it's a flashback, right?

Because they can't start slowly, you might people can flip to another streaming platform too quickly, right? So every show starts with main character. Has five bullet holes in them and is screaming.

And then you cut to two weeks earlier and I think they don't trust us that. Some that this is going somewhere, and there's a lot of parallel editing and everything. And just the idea that one of the most popular shows in television history could often consist of people playing things, and it's that pace.

But here's the thing. How lucky was I to to grow up in that situation? Where, in fact, the environment was set up for actors to not improvise but participate, make suggestions, things like that. And even as a six year old, I mean, my dad was having to read the lines of the read through, and I would just kind of sit there at first.

My father rants. But later, you know, when I started to learn to read and so forth, I was in it. And I actually started occasionally making a suggestion. And they'd never, you know, never went anywhere, kind of pissed me off a little bit.

And we were rehearsing this scene where I was supposed to come into the into the courthouse. And Otis Hal Smith, Otis, that was over here, and Andy was there and Don was somewhere else. And and I came in and I was supposed to say, Hey, Paul, something, something, whatever the line was.

And then I sort of stopped. The director, Bob Sweeney, said, What is it, Ronnie? And I said, Well, I don't think a kid would say it that way. Oh, and he said, Well, how do you think a kid would say it? I don't remember what the line was, but I, whatever, I pitched my little my little fix on it.

And he said, Ok, good, yeah, do it, do it that way. And it was just like I was a part of it. I just felt this surge of of, you know of, of, of being involved in something.

And Andy, from across, said, What are you? grinning at Youngin?

And I said, What's the first idea of mine you've taken? And he gave it the proper beat, and he said, Well, it was the first one that was any damn good. Now let's see seven year old.

I agree with him, I think we are. But and what I think really holds up well is your character is a real boy. He's a you're playing, you're, you're playing the reality of the situations.

You're not saying, let me get this straight. Otis is drunk again. Sounds like someone needs rehab. We can get the camera, which, by the way, would have been a great line.

Yep, not a famous actor, but it was. He was professional and working. Took it upon himself to just go up quietly to Andy at one point and say, Now, I see they're writing Opie, kind of the way they write. The rusty Hamer character on Danny Thomas. And like so many shows where he's a wiseass, yeah, and he said that, you know, Ronnie can do that and everything, but what what if he actually respected his father?

And Andy thought about it and told me years later that he went back to the writers and said, Let's write, let's write. Andy. Opie like, like, Ronnie Rance, Oh wow, and yeah, and let's try that, and they went for it.

Right, and the kid, and the kid knows it, and the kid knows it, and is always letting him know it. And it got amped up, sometimes stretched out, and kind of a meta way. Like on Married with Children, where you know they're, or sometimes the Simpsons, where they're actively plotting the father's death.

That's fascinating to me that you were part of that and you could have been part of so many shows, but that one's different. Yes, then you go from that, you're in film, and then you start to think, you know what I think I'm doing. You want to. You're interested in directing, because you've been, you're around, you're watching directors, you're interested in it.

And there's a job you take on a TV show and you think, well, this probably won't get in the way of me going to film school, right? Because what TV show lasts more than a pilot or a first season? You are right, and so you sign up for Happy days.

Correct you idiot.

Which now now, I mean, I mostly know Andy Griffith's show Mayberry RFD from reruns, because I really come of age in the 70s. The thing is happy days like It's, it's the, it's suddenly the only show on TV that we all watch. And you're just right there at the heart of this thing, this juggernaut.

And it was not the plan, right?

And we went from a solid show to sort of drifting like that. We get canceled to let's let's put Fonzie front and center and take advantage of this. And then I think we became a number one show, even that first season, that we, that we went in front of an audience. Which was a huge education for me, because I'd never done anything in front of people. And here we have this Gary Marshall, this great bunch of writers, Lowell Gans among them, who wound up writing with his partner, Babalu Mandel. You know, Night Shift and Splash and all, and so many other movies, league of their own and city slickers anyway. But suddenly it was about these hard laughs and that I had never really been around that search.

You know, Don Knotts would sometimes get there, but it was a more of. It was a general, you know, totally based on on reality. I was terrified doing it, but I learned so much. And I and Jerry Paris was this consummate comedy director.

I was so grateful to have in my head the kind of the rhythms that I'd learned about. Not from the Andy Griffith show, but from Happy Days.

And then second season, you're in front of a studio audience and then the show is becoming super popular. Crazy popular. And so characters will enter and the audience will go crazy, right? And so characters had that they're. They're entering with important information, like there's a fire across the street.

So.

Ron You'll enter, you'll enter the you know, whatever, the Malt shop, and you'll be like, Hey, hey, I don't want to go like that. And you'll stand there, right? Just take a pause because you can't talk and you're not, and look around and then you'll get in. But finally, when everyone dies down, it is a fire across the street.

And if you take the reality of it, there's something you're, like a sociopath, like, why didn't you tell everybody right away? There's a fire? I'm waiting for my applause, man.

Yeah, exactly, which is which is good times. yeah, good times, and that's what they were, that's what they were going for.

And and you know, the same thing would happen with J.

J On that show, Yeah, and so it was kind of a. it was kind of a. It was kind of a thing. Now, you know, I don't know.

I know I don't. I'm not watching a lot of audience sitcoms these days, but I don't know whether I think most people they don't even shoot with an audience.

I sometimes people decry, Oh, TV these days, I agree.

And which kind of led to not only the style, which was sort of supposed to be originally much a little more faux documentary than it wound up being. But, you know, I was pitching the idea of a narrator. And Mitch said, I don't think we're going to need that. And we did it. And so, you know, he just he shot, and it was funny.

But he said, You know, we should try it as an experiment. I kind of think you're on to something. So I was, I was directing a movie in Santa Fe and he said, Would you just temp in the voice? and I? So I did it literally in the sound truck.

We were on location in Santa Fe. I did it one lunch break for the pilot, right? And so send it off. Didn't think much about it.

A couple of days later, Mitch called back and said, Well, I have. I have really good news and news that maybe is good or maybe not, I don't know. And I said, Well, OK, well, give me the really good news first, he said. The pilot tested really well, yeah.

And I said, Well, what's the what's the mixed news? He said. Well, I just don't know how you're going to feel about it because the narrator tested the highest and now you have to do it.

We sold the show, but I said, you're doing it.

Right, so, of course, it would never occur to me that you wouldn't be the narrator of arrested development. And I think, for my money, if you had to say, like, OK, there's what are the, what are the the absolute ACME? What's the height of television comedy? And you can not one, but you can pick like five arrested developments in there. The best of it is absolute perfection.

And I do think that people know you, they like you, and they trust you and you. Your voice saying. Meanwhile, Buster Buster had his own ideas, and it's such a dense show, you know, Buster thinking. He's in Mexico, although really, he's only 10 miles from his house, sleeping at his housekeeper's residence. You know, it's a constant.

You're being taken by the hand through this absolute madness, and I don't think that show could exist without you there, taking you along.

You're looking for the narrator to bail you out, man.

OK, arrested Development is still the go to cool and we watch it. And there are certain moments that I go to again and again and again that I can't, and I'm friends with a bunch of these guys.

So I will, I will corner, Will Arnett and say, why does it bother you? If you're dancing as the magician, but Buster's dancing as well? What bothers you? That? Because he's often getting like, No, no, no, I do.

But I'll just hound him all the time about that stuff, and he's got answers. Yes, he's got answers. So you've now hit a gusher twice, and that implies that you had nothing to do with it because you did, but you've had this great fortune.

And then I remember very clearly seeing, Oh, there's going to be this movie, Grand Theft Auto, and it's directed by Ron Howard. Now. Since then, we're very familiar with the idea of an on camera person directing a film.

And but, but, you know, yeah, that was not a transition. And particularly to have been a kid actor on a sitcom, you know, the whole thing was it was ludicrous in people's minds.

The business was so much more closed then and then there were and there were. There was not even any like MTV or anything where you could go and prove your chops somewhere.

And, and but he and his wife, Jane, were so much like young content creators of today. Yes, yes, because they they're the new medium, the new thing, the tech that was interesting to them was TV, which was just brand new. And he wasn't even interested in puppets, but he loved television.

He wanted to be a part of it. He was, you know, he was living in in Washington and he, he went down there. And just kind of. They looked for. They were looking for a five minute puppet show to go with the news. I mean, you know, but they were just experimenting with TV. And he got in on the experiment, along with Jane, ultimately became his wife.

But you, you look at these crazy little six second commercials they did and these little five minute bits they did for for after the news hour. And it was so inventive and and it was all. Bets are off and just kind of whatever you want to do. But they were doing, they were getting their ten thousand hours in, and they were doing what a what a content creator does now, which is find your voice.

See, if anybody's interested, figure out what they're interested in, and, and, you know, and go for their well. At that time, there was there was really no outlet like that for me. I mean, I literally was thinking about going down to public access television and trying to, like, do a show on public access television.

Entertainment was so much smaller, you said it was closed, it was a very insular world. Yes, there's three networks, right?

There's a couple of studios, they make the stuff, they decide who the people are, and so it's very impossible to crack into that. Yeah, and especially if they have a preconceived notion like, I'm sorry, you're the guy from Happy days and you're Opie.

And if I do well, they say, well, it's his show, if I, if I. If I have an off episode, then I can't even direct his own show. And it's three camera. Not what I wanted to do. But Roger Corman was one of the few people who was taking that kind of a risk.

And I knew that about him, and he wanted me to act. In a movie called Eat my Dust, and I read, Eat my Dust, and I didn't much care for it.

I saw no Oscars, and, you know, no Oscar opportunities in that one. But but. But I did have a script that I'd written that was kind of a slice of life about a guy over stuck over college break. And, you know, in Hollywood, and I had some short films, I was supposed to go in and have this meeting about about eat my dust. American graffiti had been a big hit.

Happy Days was becoming a number one show, and Roger wanted me to be in this, in this car crash comedy. And my agent was going to come with me to sit with me to have this meeting, and he was my agent for. Like, my whole childhood, and I and I remember saying, you can't, you can't go in with me.

I was only I was only 21, but I knew I was going to try to barter. Yeah, and he didn't care about that, I knew he didn't care about that, so I I. I remember the look on his face.

He was shattered, you know, I mean, his client said, No, don't go to the meeting, so I went in, talked to Roger, I said, You know, I don't love eat my dust, but what I really want to do is direct. Here's a script.

I think I've raised half the money coming out of Australia, a hundred and fifty thousand. I need another hundred and fifty thousand in distribution. And if you do that, then I'll, I'll happily be in. Eat my dust, he read it.

He got back to me, he looked at my student films and he said, Well, that's a character piece, it's very well written. But it's not what I do. And he said, Here's what, here's what I'll promise you.

If you, if you act in, Eat my dust. I'll give you a chance to write a script, if you write the script and I like it and you're willing to be in it again. Then I'll let you direct that, if that fails, I'll let you direct the second unit on something in the car crashes or the fights or something else. So I thought, OK, so my big, I leveraged my way into a second unit job. Yeah, that's going to look great on the resume.

But I took it and and and when? When eat my dust succeeded. I went in and I pitched so many different ideas. It was a sci fi thing, a noir thing, you know, just different kinds of projects. And he smiled.

And he said, he said, when we were testing, he was very erudite, right? I remember he had been to Caltech and he was an engineering, you know, an engineer at heart, he said. When we were testing titles for Eat My Dust, there was another title. Came in a very strong second.

Grand Theft Auto.

If you can fashion a car crash comedy that we can correctly entitle grand theft auto.

I'd, I'd probably make that picture, yeah, and my dad and I cooked up an outline. We wrote a script in a month. It was the fastest green light I've had in my entire career as a director.

Yet, you know, he was so supportive of all the all of his graduates.

So I had this great treat yesterday, which is, I'm told I get to see an advanced copy of Idea Man. And I have a lot emotionally invested in this film because I have my own Jim Henson connection. I watched the film and it's fantastic, it's, it's a it's a fantastic documentary. There are so many things I learned about Jim Henson that I did not know Jim Henson. I didn't realize his background growing up in this Christian science.

But he was creative, he was, he was, he was smart, and he wanted to express himself, you know? And his dad was a bit of a scientist, like agricultural scientist. And so they would travel around to different parts of the country, a lot of it in the south. And but. But Jim, you know, was looking for that kind of, that kind of breakthrough.

But he, it was a moment of transformation and and he sees that opportunity. But it's interesting that he grabbed, wound up grabbing, you know, an ancient art form, yes, and elevating it. When I was a kid, sitting around, we were talking about the Andy Griffith show.

A lot of the character actors who would come on that show would be bitching and moaning. Because because radio was dead or vaudeville had gone. And yet we all know that those mediums didn't vanish. You know, there there isn't a Vaudeville circuit per se, but there's stand up, there's Cirque du Soleil there, you know, I mean, it's the art forms are as as well as relevant as ever.

And and I think you're so right. Conan. I mean, I just think creative people figure out a way they find a way.

And one of the things that he wants to do early on is, and I hadn't thought of this before. But it's in your documentary. A lot of puppeteering was done, just in kind of a wide shot. Where you see with the theater, with the with the with curtains, proscenium and little curtains. And that characters are all bashing each other and things are happening. I don't know if it's Jim Henson or his wife, Jane, but they understand that the TV camera has to be right up against the puppets.

And that so that you can see their expressions and you can see a character deflate. And what's really fascinating to me? As you look, you know, you have access in a documentary to all that early footage long before. It's very sophisticated, right? It's basically Kermit, but they don't know it's Kermit yet.

Right, right, but the kind of the puckering of the mouth, yes, when there's a little bit of uncertainty and the looking to the side and then maybe looking back at the camera.

All that stuff is there and it's in close up and they're looking at a basically looks like a kinescope. Like the right. The technology is very crude, right?

And look, they're storytellers themselves. And so they, you know, they recognize the need to share what they understood about their parents, you know, in a dimensional way. And so that was incredibly valuable. But Frank was there side by side, and he gave so much to the movie through his interview. In fact, stylistically, you know, I tried to sort of channel Jim Henson in that aesthetic.

A lot of stop motion, a lot of very kinetic cutting and some animations and things like that. And the idea sort of stemmed first from me watching a lot of Jim's experimental movies that had nothing to do with puppets, which I didn't know about. By the way, yeah, I mean, neither. And they're cool, you know? And, in fact, they anticipate a lot of what you're going to eventually see in commercials or even music videos, right?

You know, I mean, they're kind of hard days, night and stuff like that, you know? So Frank, we did the interview and I just had this idea. We did it in a cube because one of his experimental TV shows was called The Cube. And it's like a human being trapped sort of just with himself and his ideas and thoughts. So we decided to have the interview subjects be in a cube.

It also would allow us to use those cubes. They're almost like television tests. To keep putting a lot of visual imagery in there and keep telling this story of Jim and the Muppets. But we did Frank's interview, it was very moving, very informative, very funny, and I said, You know, Frank, what if we did? Like, what if you're entranced into the set?

We were going to have you just come and sit down, but what if we did it? Stop motion? And he, of course, instantly knew what to do. So we put the camera up high, we had a chair, kind of squiggle in, come in and stop.

And he went in perfectly. One take laid out all the steps and all the beats so that we could do it. And it just established immediately for the editors and myself that, you know, we were going to, we were going to inform this movie with this kind of aesthetic.

And then I decide I need to be serious, so I go to a serious college. Which turns out to have this very old humor magazine in it. As part of it. The lamp, the Harvard lampoon, I get on the lampoon. And almost immediately, the person who's put in charge of it, the first woman to ever be put in charge of it, is Lisa Henson. Oh, then she's my boss.

I'm working for Lisa Henson and then every now and then Jim Henson's around and I'm losing my mind. I bet he could not have been a sweeter, nicer man. And in fact, Lisa graduates. I take over the lampoon.

And at one point, Jim Henson calls me and says, Hey, we just finished the Dark Crystal, and we have these thrones that the creatures sit on in the dark crystal. Do you guys want one for your lampoon building? Oh, you've never heard me say yes to anything more quickly. And so I said, Yes, how do I make this happen? I'm just still a kid.

I'm like, 19 and I'm going, Yes. Mr. Henson, Oh so what do I? And he said, And it's funny, because when you're talking to Jim Henson, you're talking to Kermit, kind of.

Yeah, so Kermit's on the other end of the line saying, Well, you know, just get a van and come on down to New York and pick it up. And I'm like, OK, Kermit Henson bye. So I hang up the phone. We rent a van and my friend Mark Ganim and Maya Williams, we jump in this van and we drive down to Manhattan. And I'm petrified.

So I'm like, we're driving to Manhattan. Suddenly, it's like a Muppet movie, yeah, and I'm kind of a muppet. I'm going, what's happening?

Beaker's Day out Yeah, exactly, I'm Beaker. And we get there. And sure enough, there's like, Snuffleupagus is hanging from the ceiling and they say, Oh, yeah, here's the chair it's made of.

It's not that heavy because it's made of this super light material. We we carry it like a jewel and we put it in the back of one of those chairs that they're at the studio. Yeah, and I drove it all the way back to Cambridge and we put it in the Lampoon building. So cut to, I don't know, like maybe nine months ago.

I'm in Cambridge and a student comes up to me, says, Hey, by the way, Conan, I'm on the lampoon, you want to come by? And I went, Yeah, sure, I've been there in a long time, so I go by and there's the chair.

Great little banged up, yeah, because they drink.

I mean, the puppets drank. Yeah, it was that way when we got it.

But anyway, amazing.

But it's kind of a tribute to them, because, look, the reality is, when you see the film, we deal with the family, we do. Jim and Jane had an amazing, very unique and very specific kind of romance and relationship and working relationship. And the very thing that brought them together was was the birth of this brainchild. The Muppets also was the thing that ultimately kind of caused the relationship to to erode and the romance to be lost.

And yet they, there was still so much love and respect for one another and for creativity. And the kids are great, and the kids love each other and they appreciate their parents in a very, in a very honest, you know, clear eyed way. And they knew they couldn't make this documentary themselves.

You know, they're, they're creative, they're producers and directors, and so forth. But. But I felt so fortunate that they would, that they would trust me. And I got very excited about it. When I went, and, you know, to their to the studio here, the Chaplin Henson studio, and saw all this archival stuff. Because two things happened on that day.

One was, I saw those crazy TV commercials and that early, early stuff, I saw the experimental stuff that's just weird and strange. And yet you can see very avant garde, very avant garde, very cutting edge, very ahead of its time. But you can see, you know, the way that it influenced the mainstream stuff that is so beloved, that we all appreciate.

And and yet. And I also got to talk to the kids and I recognized that there was this family story to be told as well. That would be so relatable because there is a there's. Of course, there's a cost to that level of output. And you know, and a human, you know, there's a human factor there and we're all the beneficiaries of all that hard work. But we didn't see all the things that he did that kind of misfired and at the time disappointed him. Including Labyrinth, which, of course, now is a is a classic.

Right? And now, of course, it's been put behind glass and preserved. But in my day, you could just go by. And there are some pipes there and they're just covered with those drawings. Yeah, amazing.

I'm trying to wipe them off, you know, because I like clean pipes.

Because that that kind of it didn't, that didn't.

Yeah, and going completely over the top, and it's Jim's voice, and it's just it's just, it's just brilliant.

You know, it's so interesting because Jim was, you know, you got to really know him. I met him only once, but it's so shy and retiring in person, you know, I mean, just kind of. And and you, you think of him as a performer, but but not not with a microphone, not not with a camera on his face. It's through the puppets, you know, we were talking about Andy and Don, but I. It became so clear. Not even so much from the interview with Frank Oz because he was very modest about his contributions.

But as I began to recognize and look at these videos, what a comedy team they were. Yes, not just Bert and Ernie, but but, you know, Miss Piggy and Kermit, there's a great bit in there with Fozzie and Kermit, and this is timing.

I mean, it's like precision comedy timing.

Right, so the timing was pitch perfect on those, yeah. And then I think the same thing with when you look at a really good Sesame Street bit, it's just good, yeah.

Were the counting bits and these great little experimental things? That would make me sit down and watch the show and kind of admire what was going on there and envy it a little bit? And I? Later, I realized, Well, that's. That was one of the one of the reasons Jim did it, because he never wanted to do kids programming. But they said, you know, bring the muppets, but we'll also let you do your experimental films. But how about doing them for kids so that I can learn? And and he had a.

He had a son with severe learning disabilities. So that was something that he was, you know, clued into. And he was a. Wouldn't you say that? The reason it really worked at every level was that he was really a satirist, right?

But it's, you can tell, it's the same kind of, almost the same character, but they're prototypes, but they're doing like Hormel Ham commercials, right? But they're very, and they had they last like seven seconds long, but because they're seven seconds long, they're very meta.

Right, they're very today's sense of comedy. Yeah, they're not by a hormel ham, they're there.

They're, they're very weird and very funny by today's standards, and must have looked like very strange at the time, and yet really popular.

Right, and they do, yeah, and you can leave this in. I don't think they should, but they do.

Adam Sachs is going to take that out. But. But because they see the value of, we found out that they like that people listen to the ads.

But Lee, But the Muppet show, you know, I didn't think about it. I loved watching it. I didn't watch him, you know, religiously, but man, I'm I watch him now, yeah.

I mean, those episodes hold up. But I didn't realize that he was. He was basically taking the English Dance Hall sort of almost like Vaudeville version and applying that to the show.

I met him on a few occasions and he was really nice. And he actually suggested he had some show that probably never went. And it was towards the end of his life. But suggested that I, because people were always like that. Conan's got like, a look or something, Yeah, he's irritating, but he's got a look.

And and Jim Henson suggested that I audition for something for one of his shows. And and I remember, they sent over, I've told this, but they sent, they sent over. Sides that had two actors, two characters, and I didn't know which one he wanted me to audition for, right?

So I, I showed up at the end and said to the woman who was running the audition. It says Steve and Mitch, and I don't know which is which. And she said, Oh, here's the character breakdowns, and she handed me Steve. And it said. Women want to be with him and want to be him. He oozes sexuality.

And I was just like, deflating. And then I said, I said, Can I see the one for Mitch? and she handed me Mitch was like. This gangly, goofy, red topped goon stumbles his way through life.

But people like him, despite his many flaws and his asexuality. And I went, I think I'm the second guy.

No, this is a lovely tribute and one of the things that really got to me is because of my connection. When Jim passed very suddenly in 1990, and it was such a shock because it was just out of nowhere. He gets 53 years old, 53 years old. I was invited to that memorial.

And to this day, it's the greatest send off I've seen anybody have. Because it's a funeral, it's a funeral mass, it's a memorial. And it started with, I guess, a letter from Jim that he had written, which is like, Well, if you're reading this, it must mean I'm gone, right?

And he just decided to write this in case he ever passed suddenly, and he did, and it was so lovely. And then all the characters come out and we're all laughing and crying at the same time. So you show footage of the memorial service.

And I was there, yeah, and I to this day have thought that that's what everyone should be. Like, it can't be because we're not all Jim Henson, you know, but that's what it should be. It really should be a celebration.

It was a it was, you know, a tremendous tribute and moment, but he's so loved. Yeah, I mean, everybody we interviewed, it was, you know, it was.

It was actually great to make a film that I thought was interesting, could be revealing, and actually just doesn't have a dark side. I mean, it's just that he literally was just a guy who lived in a positive light and struggled ups and downs. Difficulties on a personal side, but in the relationship, sure, and yet set such a great advance, you know? Example, yes.

Like how you navigate that, too. I mean, winning is easy, but when you struggle, that defines the man or the woman. And you look at both Jim and Jane, Yeah.

And you and you sort of say, Well, that's, you know, we should, we should do that.

You know, and I, I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so glad I know you. I'm so glad you let me saw your arm off 30 years ago. And we're still at it, we're still going.

Yeah, let's do a leg. Oh, I checked out his leg on the way that left one looks like it could go.

Anyway, make sure Jim Henson Idea man is just it's a gift, and make sure that you check it out and Ron Howard, you're a gift. Thanks so much for being here. Great to be here. And let's get together, get a drink and talk sunscreen whenever you want.

Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista and Brit Khan. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode.

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