Transcript of Ron Howard

Hi, my name is Ron Howard, and I feel, frankly, indifferent about being Conor O'Brien's friend. You know what?

No one says this often, but Ron Howard, you prick. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are going to be friends. I can tell that we are going to be friends. Hello there. And welcome to Conor O'Brien, Needs a friend. I wanted to start out a little different, so I went with yellow there, and that might become a thing. Yeah, like a Midwest DJ from the '50s. Yellow there. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. From my pals, yes. The cool bar here is exceedingly low. Joined by my compatriot It's my Confederates, compadres, co-owners. Are we co-owners? What? I have steak in this thing? Oh, 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 car. Can you just do a different car that I would know? Yellow. It's Sonam Obsession, and yellow, 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 once a year. That's cool. Then I feel like, yeah, you got to wear it. I'm on co-winnership of that. No, I had to have something fixed a little bit. I went in there and they were immediately like, gone in. It's all because of you. It's because they're Romanian and they're shown as a hero. I think you're discounting how big I am in the Romanian community. Are we? Yes. They did say, Where is Fussy Man? Which is Romanian for coolest dude ever. Yes, of course. Why? Just look at my posture. Anyway, we had a nice exchange. They were very happy that I went to Armenia with you. That is the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, in LA, especially, to have street cred with the Armenians. You're in. Yeah. Eduardo is nodding a lot. Eduardo, your wife is Romanian, am I correct? Yes, Vonses. Yes. Check him out. What do you mean check him out? He said, How are you? I said, Yeah, Vonses. I thought you said her name was Vonses. No, her name's Eza. Yeah, I know. When you said Vonses, everyone listening just assumed that was her name.

Except for our Romanian 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 I said, brev, and he said, inch par se, and I said, lavem, and he went, Whoa. Yes, so that's him? Let's not keep it pushing. I'm hungry. Yes, yes. Greba. Don't do that. Why? What's the matter? Don't do your fake You're doing so well. It's just a matter of time before you- Matt didn't know it was fake. I'm fluent. Yeah. You do say every now and then, I hit a real word accidentally. No, I don't. Greba Stabi? Not at all. Hush.

Hush.

Yeah. Hush. What dialect do you speak? It's important. I don't like that. I almost fell for it. Do you even know that you asked a real question? Yes. Oh, no, you don't. Yes, I do. I speak Western dialect. Yeah. We always assume that.. Oh, come on. We say gorgor at the end of the word. Yeah, gorgor, gorgor, gorgor. Anyway, I think I'm doing well in the Romanian community. I think if we go community by community, eventually, it will I 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 6 pounds of dried apricot. It's rolled up like a carpet. Yeah, kush. It's rolled up like a carpet. Well, you remember when you and I went, that's what they kept giving us was dried apricot and dried pomegranate. It was very good. Dried fruit. But I said, We call these back home a fruit rollup. They said, Why are you speaking in that crazy way? I said, I'm doing a comedy character, and this is a fruit rollup. Remember then they said, You need to leave Armenia immediately.

Yeah, they did. They almost kicked us out of the country. 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. Yes. I said, Yeah, you could fool me because this looks like a fruit rollup. You doubled down. I tripled down. Don't double down. By now, it's quadrupled down because I think I'm on the fourth go-around of fruit rollup. But we had a nice bond. That's nice. I do sincerely thank you for hooking me up in the Arminian 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 a lot to me. So thank you for taking me to Armenia. Oh, of course. It was cool. Free trips are the best trips. Also, it was your homeland. Oh, that's right. It wasn't a Vegas U-turn. What would you consider your ancestral homeland, Matt? Would it be Scotland?

I always thought it was Irish, then learned it was definitely Scot's 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. You're paying? Well, it's not going to be me that's paying. We're going to find a sponsor. Oh, okay. I'll totally go for real. Yeah, we're going to get solo stove to back this. Do we have to use a 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 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, and then we'll get into bed with them. I mean, Apple. Where's Apple been?

Apple is a huge company, and this is a cool podcast. Adam, you- They need to advertise. Yeah. Because you know what? Even hard core Apple fans, if they aren't made aware 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. I'll wait. Okay. I think, why don't you do a preemptive Apple read right now? That'll get them. Let them know that you really care about the product. I love Apple, and I always have, because, well, Apple just gets the job done. Get her done. Wait, that's not good. Okay, someone else does that. This is a good song.

Yeah, it doesn't It 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. It just sounds 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. I got the Apple Watch. I use the Apple phone, known as the iPhone, to many fans. Yes. I don't see the Apple Watch on your wrist right now. Are you trying to help or not? I wear it when I'm exercising. You're wearing it somewhere else. Can I tell you something else? Yes. Yes, they make a special one for other regions of the body, and we just lost Apple. You know who we have? Samsung. And Samsung is great. You know, Samsung is great. Do we really have Samsung? Oh, we have Samsung. Why are we doing an Apple commercial? I thought about that halfway through, Konan's Apple read, and I got a bad move. Can I say something? Can I just say something? He's on love of a TV. Let me just rip off the top. I just had this thought, fuck Apple. You know what I What the fuck? I'm not buying a new desktop.

I'm buying a new Samsung frame TV.

And guess what? I'll tell you something else. This is why I should have been talking about Samsung. I don't even... By the way, does anyone use an Apple phone? No, I haven't seen one in years. Is it if phone or iPhone? I think it's if phone, right? Everyone calls it an Apple phone. Everyone does. Anyway. Keep saying it. It seems like a badly run company with a product no one cares about. Here's the thing. Samsung, they actually have a code and 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.

Samsung, are you listening?

Yeah. I guess I did mean what you thought I meant. That's definitely what I thought. Anyway, it's this channel. Have you watched the Konan channel? I only watch it. It's fantastic. Yeah, it's amazing. I don't watch anything else. Sometimes my wife is saying, Oh, I hear Shogun's really good. I'm like, Who wants that later? More. She's crying. She wears a lot of mascaras, and it's just running. Classic Liza. She's a big goss. It's running down her face like Timmy Fay Baker. She's like, I just heard Shogun. I was like, Quiet. This is me in '98. I'm killing it. Killing it. So, yeah, Samsung gets it done. And then I guess, what happened to Apple? It fell apart for them in the late '90s. While we were talking, they went bankrupt. That's what I'm told. We have that much power. And when I said that much 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. Remember, Samsung is the way to go. If you need a phone, I don't know.

I wouldn't lose my money. Okay, don't ever do a coding. They do everything. What? Appliances. Who are we talking about now? Samsung. I thought you were talking about Apple. Apple doesn't do shit. Okay, now you're going too far. What if they're about to buy in? Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, we got to leave the door open. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think we should leave the door open. I don't need the door open to crack and say, I think they do make a fine product. But we love Samsung. We love Samsung. We love Samsung. But 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. Von Zis. What did you say to me?

Said Von Zis. Von Zis.

I can't wait to meet her. I can't wait to meet your wife. I'll be like, Von Zis, Von Zis, you're more beautiful I thought. She'll be like, What are you talking about?

Why are you saying you're more beautiful than I thought Eduardo's wife?

Yeah. Because I think- You think the Von Zis is weird? You know what? You're away You're so much more beautiful than I thought. You know what? I've been saying that. There's 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. No. So many times I say to women, people bring their spouses by and I go, Oh, you're so much more beautiful than I thought.

It's weird.

You're essentially saying, I thought you were ugly prior to seeing you. Yeah. It also implies I'm thinking about you a lot and think of you as ugly. Hey, would you do me a favor, Eduardo? Tell Vonsis, I'm very sorry for what I said, and I didn't mean it. I can't wait to meet Vonsis. Keep her away from him. All right, we got to get into it. 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 Nightshift. He now has a new documentary on Disney Plus called Jim Hensen, 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 can take it or leave it. But I'm here. To be honest, you really could.

I mean, I was shocked you showed up. You've had a level of success. Frankly, I'm surprised when anyone shows up, 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.

No, I actually do. I've always loved conversations with you, going back to your rookie year on TV. That's right.

You came on. You were one of the early people to come on the show, you agreed to do a bit. No one knew who I was, and we were trying very, very out there bits. We said, What we want to do is we want to saw your arm off. You said, Okay. 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. You were fantastic. Of course, most people didn't know who I was. You've been iconic since, I don't know, 1965 and beloved. 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.

I loved it. Hey, a funny red head. There you go.

Okay. I have a very clear, distinct memory of getting invited to some event. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was like a vanity fair party, something where I would feel a little bit out of place thinking, Do I belong here? I'm with my wife, and they see me at a table with you and your wife and a couple of other people, but we're all right next to each other. Then you and I start to get into this very intense conversation. I remember people at the table thinking, Wow, what are Konan and Ron Howard talking about? It's really intense. Are they What are they talking about Phil? What are they talking about? My wife leaned over and she listened, and then she said to the rest of the group, Sunblock.

It was true.

It was true. You were saying like, Yeah, no, no. Here's what I do. I always try and wear a hat. But it's got to be at least a 45. I was like, Yeah, but is there Zinc in there? You're like, Here's the deal, Tom. Zinc can be problematic. We went really deep. Of course, your wife was like, Yeah.

Well, my wife's a redhead. You were It was vivid redhead. Same as Bryce. When Bryce was our first born, the first time that we took her in, we went to the dermatologist, Sheryl and I, and brought Bryce, and Bryce was literally in her arms. She was maybe a year old. The dermatologist gives us each our checkup and so forth. Then he says, You're going to have to keep a hat on her. You're going to have to keep her. Then he looked at Sheryl and looked at me and he said, She's very pale. She's pale. I said, Yes, we know she's pale. He said, You're not going to have any more kids, are you?

Oh, my God.

He meant it.

Oh, my God.

I remember distinctly having a conversation with the dermatologist once where he said, Okay, This is when I'm in my 30s.

He went, Okay, okay. But look at the freckling you have, the sun damage. I went, Well, yeah. He said, Do you do sunblock? I said, Yeah. He said, Do you wear a hat? Yeah. Do you wear long shirts? Yeah. Okay, but what about some days? Do you ever walk? How do you get from the car to that? 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. He was like, Well, it's your death. It's like they're Are you afraid you're going to bring down the level of life expectancy for their patients. Yes, and for everybody. They smirch their record. It's going to lead to a lawsuit, probably. 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?

Well, I'm a parent of adults. That constant worrying about your kids has fated. I feel pretty confident about this.

I don't have that. I just thought like, Hey, man, I'm in show business. I got to worry about myself. These kids are on their own.

Well, good for you. But You walk your path. Yeah, okay. But she said, I'm going to cry on demand on Konin show. I said, Oh, come on, Bryce. I've seen her do it. She She can cry on command. I said, But that's not... I mean, it's a show. It's a live show. She said, No, I'm going to do it. Then she told me it worked. I know that. And yet, when I watched her on the show doing it, I was so edge of my seat still.

I'll tell you, I recommend, if you get a second, check this out because Bryce was on the show and she did this. It was really, I think, I can't say this about my show, but it was a very cool moment of television because she said she was going to do it. The whole audience gets very quiet and there's a process and you can hear a pin drop. My heart's pounding. I Because I'm thinking, I'm the host of the show. I can only imagine what you- Failure is not that funny.

Yeah.

I had gotten used to it at that point. Then it happens and it is you It was a moment. I've heard about it from so many people.

When the tear finally rolled down, I was like, Oh, everybody teared. It might as well have been a Super Bowl breakdown. But here's the thing about Bryson crying. Her first professional job, maybe not her first. Her first time on Broadway was this Tartuffe, this classic show. Here she is in this theater opening night. She is sick, fever. Sheryl and I had to get her to the theater, and we 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. There's this scene where she's at her father's feet and begging for something, and she starts crying. We're sitting in the third row, and it's theater, so people can fake cry, and it worked. But she's really crying. Tears are going down her face. And it's just an unbelievable moment for me coming from a theatrical family and all that. I looked over and Sheryl is just sitting with her arms crossed, with a little smile on her face, no emotion whatsoever. So we get to intermission, and I said, Babe, weren't you knocked out by that moment? I mean, there she is. She's got a fever.

It's her opening night. She's crying real tears on Broadway. She said, Are you kidding me? She did that every day of her life when she was 17.

Because she couldn't use the car. We've all seen that.

You mentioned coming from this family.

It's really worth noting that your career in probable 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. 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. Amazing. I think I understand it because it's character comedy, not afraid of a long pause, 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. It really does hold up.

Well, it was so much a function of a singular creative voice. Not that Andy wrote. He wasn't He didn't have a producer credit, but it was his show. It was tailored to his sensibility. Sheldon Leonard, the executive producer and very active on the show, was this old character actor who had become this incredible television producer who had great success with Danny Thomas and Van Dyke and Andy Griffith Show. For a moment, he was like the comedy producer, but he was there all the time, and they were always stressing character. Andy used to kill jokes if they were to abroad. He just kept saying, The South is plenty funny on its own without having to reach for it and do slapstick and stuff. He didn't like Pettico Junction and Hillbilly Not Hillbilly Elegy. That's a movie I directed. He didn't like Beverly Hillbillies. Beverly Hillbillies. Because they were doing sketch, basically. High concept. He didn't like Little Abner. As a result, I don't know that there have been other single camera shows that held that tone. Maybe Reel McCoy's a little bit, but they didn't have Don Nott.

I was remarking recently that it's the ability to have two characters just talking about, Oh, it's a nice day.

Well, those bits were usually when the show was short. Yes. We would shoot Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, single camera, read on Thursdays, rehearse Fridays, shoot Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Several times, these scenes, the kinds that you're sighting, usually between Dawn and Andy. I remember vividly, Aaron Rubin, our showrunner, coming down and saying, I'm talking to Andy. Then Andy, he always called Dawn Jessie. He was like, Jessie, we're short. Come on. At the very last thing 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 one of these scenes.

They're amazing. I love watching them because they're just playing the silences, and it's so well. Of course, you've got these two consummate, beautiful actors. They're just such great comedic actors, but just, Oh, boy, it's a nice day. Sure is, isn't it? 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. Then that turns out it's a flashback because they can't start slowly. People can flip to another streaming platform too quickly. Every show starts with main character has five bullet holes in them and is screaming, and then you cut to two weeks earlier. I think they don't trust us that this is going somewhere. There's a lot of parallel editing and everything. Just the idea that one of the most popular shows in television history could often consist of people playing things in that pace.

The fact that the show really does endure. I mean, it's actually on all the time, and especially over COVID. I kept hearing from people that it was like a lifeline for them. But here's the thing. How lucky was I 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. Even as a six-year-old, my dad was having to read the lines at the read-through, and I would just sit there at first. My father rants. But later, when I started to learn to read and so forth, I was in it. I actually started occasionally making a suggestion, and it never went anywhere. It pissed me off a little bit in that first year. I will never forget, it was the second episode of the second season, and I had turned seven. We were rehearsing this scene where I was supposed to come into the courthouse, and Otis, Hal Smith, Otis was over here, and Andy was there, and Dawn was somewhere else. I came in, and I was supposed to say, Hey, Paul, something, something, whatever the line was. Then I stopped.

The director, Bob Sweeney, said, What is it, Roni? I said, Well, I don't think a kid would say it that way. He said, Well, how do you think a kid would say it? I don't remember what the line was, but I pitch my little fix on it. He said, Okay, good. Yeah, do it that way. It was just like I was a part of it. I just felt this surge of being involved in something. Andy from across said, What are you grinning at, young'un? I said, What's the first idea of mine you've taken? He gave it the proper beat and he said, Well, it was the first one that was any damn good. Now, let's rehearse the scene.

To a seven-year-old. But you know what's also nice? If you look at the history of situation comedies, especially Usually, and increasingly so through the '70s and '80s and '90s, the kid's role was to say something overly sophisticated and wise ass, wise assy that a kid would never say. That's where you get all these the Gary Coleman character that's just like, Well, if you ask me, it sounds like this guy's paying too many taxes. I love that episode. I know. I agree with him. I think we are paying too many taxes. What I think really holds up well is your character is a real boy. 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. Winking at the camera, which, by the It would have been a great line.

Yeah, that's it. But well, okay, this is something that means a lot to me. I didn't know anything about it at the time, but later Andy told me this. When we were doing a revival, Return to Mayberry, or one of those interview specials or something, Andy told me this, that in that very first season, the first episode, that my dad was an actor, not a famous actor, but 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 the way they write the Rusty Hamer character on Danny Thomas, and like so many shows where he's a wise ass. He said, Roni can do that and everything, but what if he actually respected his father? Andy thought about it and told me years later that he went back to the writers said, Let's write Andy Opey like Roni Rance. Oh, wow. Yeah. Let's try that. They went for it.

Yeah. Well, it stands out. We've been fed a steady diet of everyone hates dad, dad's an idiot, and the kids- And the kid knows it. And the kid knows it and he's always letting him know it. And it got amped up, sometimes stretched out in a meta way, like on Married with Children, where sometimes the Simpsons, where they're actively plotting their father's death.

That does make me laugh. It's effective.

No, it's really funny. And I think the right way to go. My point is your dad was wrong, and I don't think you should be here. 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. Then you go from that, you're in film, and then you start to think, You know what I think I'm going to do? You're interested in directing because 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. Because what TV show lasts more than a pilot or a first season? You are right. So you sign up for Happy Days. Correct. You idiot. Now, 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. It's It's suddenly the only show on TV that we all watch. You're just right there at the heart of this thing, this juggernaut. It was not the plan, right?

No, it wasn't really the plan. Also, of course, the course of the show, it evolved. As Henry Winkler's character, Fonzie, took off, the whole show shifted. It was pretty thrilling to be around it. We went from a solid show to drifting like, Bet We Get Canceled to, Let's put Fonzie front and center and take advantage of this. Then I think we became a number one show, even that first season 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. Here we have this Gary Marshall, this great bunch of writers, Lowell Gans, among them, who wound up writing with his partner, Bob Lou Mandel, Night Shift and Splash 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. Don Nott would sometimes get there, but it was more of a gentle, totally based on reality. I was terrified doing it, but I learned so much. Jerry Paris was this consummate comedy director.

Just educate film nerds out. I mean, TV nerds out there. Jerry Paris was the neighbor on Andrew Griffith's show. I mean, on Dick Van Dyke. They had let him direct and found that he had this incredible gift.

He was a funny actor, but he was a brilliant comedy director. We had him for almost 95% of our episodes was Jerry, and he was a ringleader and just tremendous and a great teacher. And suddenly, I'm feeling the audience and I'm understanding timing and all these kinds of things in a way that I never did before. Of course, Henry, great stage actor, Tom Baisley was on the show. When I finally get a chance to start directing comedy, where we are going for laughs, which is night shift and then splash, I was so grateful to have in my head the the rhythms that I'd learned about, not from the Andy Griffith show, but from Happy Days.

One of the things I remember, I think the first time I saw it was on Happy Days, and then you later on saw it more and more, but characters would enter. First season of Happy Days, I remember, was single camera. I and shot more in this very filmic way. Then second season, you're in front of a studio audience, and then the show is becoming super popular, crazy popular. So characters will enter, and the audience will go crazy. So characters had to... They're Entering with important information. Like there's a fire across the street. Ron, you'll enter the whatever, the malt shop, and you'll be like, Hey, hey. Everyone will go like, Yay. You'll stand there.

I just take a pause.

Because you can't talk and you're nod and look around. Then finally, when everyone dies down, there's a fire across the street. If you take the reality of it, you're like a sociopath. Why didn't You tell everybody right away. There's a fire- I'm waiting for my applause, man.

Look, that was part of the excitement was to take all the hysteria around Fonzie and put in front of an audience and actually directly compete with JJ Walker. Yeah, exactly. Which is good times. That's what they were going for. The same thing would happen with JJ on that show. It was a thing. Now, I don't know. 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 think they block and shoot.

It's so It's funny because tastes have changed, times have changed so much. I think we're in a golden age. Sometimes people decry, Oh, TV these days.

I agree. You were talking about speed and density of comedy and so forth. When we were beginning Arrested Development, Mitch Hurwitz and I talked a lot about the Simpsons. And part of that style was to create, I kept saying, a density of laughs. I was a big proponent of that, which led to not only the style, which was supposed to be originally a little more faux documentary than it wound up being. But 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 forth. And he shot it, and it was funny. But he said, We should try it as an experiment. I think you're on to something. I was directing a movie in Santa Fe, and he said, Would you just temp in the voice? I did it literally in the sound truck. We were on location in Santa Fe. I did it one break for the pilot. Right. So sent it off, didn't think much about it. A couple of days later, Mitch called back and said, Well, I have really good news and news that maybe is good or maybe not.

I don't know. I said, Well, okay, well, give me the really good news first. He said, The pilot tested really well. I said, Well, 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. You're the narrator. But I love being part of that.

It makes sense because my son and I watch, rewatch, rewatch, and rewatch Arrest Development all the time. Because he's got really good comedy taste. I'm not so much to his liking, but we'll watch it again and again and again. What makes perfect sense to me, when something's done, you just take it for that everything is the way it is. Of course, it would never occur to me that you wouldn't be the narrator of Arrested Development. I think for my money, if you had to say, Okay, what are the absolute acme? What's the height of television and you can, not one, but you can pick five. The rest of the development's in there. Thank you. The best of it is absolute perfection. I do think that people know you, they like you, and they trust you. And your voice saying, Meanwhile, Buster had his own ideas. It's such a dense show. Buster thinking he's in Mexico, although really, he's only 10 miles from his house, sleeping at his housekeeper's residence. It's a constant... You're being taken by the hand through this absolute madness. I don't think that show could exist without you there taking you along.

Thank you. It was really fun. But whenever I'd have an episode where I really had a lot of lines, I said, Mitch, you've been struggling with this one. You're looking for the narrator to bail you out, man.

Now, the reason that was funny is because when you found yourself reading lines like that.

But Mitch, a bona fide comedy genius. Yes. The cast that we assemble. From the first moment, it was like, this is a little too good to be true. I mean, it's just home run hitters at every turn.

Yeah, it is absolute perfection. I can't watch it enough, and it's still the go-to. If my son's had a hard day or I've had a hard day or we both had a hard day, well, okay, Arrested Development is still the go-to. We watch it, and there are certain moments that I go again and again and again that I can't. I'm friends with a bunch of these guys, so 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? Because he's often getting like, No, I do that. But I'll just hound him all the time about that stuff.

And he's got answers. Yes, he's got answers.

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. 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. But I remember at the time thinking, What?

Yeah. I felt that pressure because I might as well have had that famous T-shirt, What I really want to do is direct, since I was about 14. I would get the most patronizing responses when I would admit it. But I also made the most out of those situations, and I would hang with the directors and take notes and do all kinds of things. But yeah, that was not a transition, and particularly to have been a kid actor on a sitcom. The whole thing, it was ludicrous in people's minds.

But you must have a confidence because you knew on some level, you knew, I got this. Yes, I did.

In fact, I started shooting Grand Theft Auto the day after my 23rd birthday, but I was disappointed because I had really planned to direct a feature while I was still in my teens. That was my goal. But again, the business was so much more closed then. There was not even any MTV or anything where you could go and prove your chops somewhere.

Or today, people can make a film using their phone.

You take this phone and you make something.

People go, Hey, that was... And then you put it online. You don't need to convince a studio. If it gets like, Oh, this got 10 million likes. You're good.

Well, by the way, I just got to jump to the documentary that we're going to talk about, Jim Hinson. I made a documentary about Jim Hinson and the Muppets. But he and his wife, Jane, were So much like young content creators of today. Yes. Because 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 living in Washington. And he went down there and just they were looking for a five-minute puppet show to go with the news. I mean, but they were just experimenting with TV. And he got in on the experiment along with Jane, ultimately. He suddenly became his wife. But you look at these crazy little six-second commercials they did and these little five-minute bits they did after the news hour. It was so inventive, and it was all bets are off and just whatever you want to do. But they were getting their 10,000 hours in, and they were doing what a content creator does now, which is find your voice, see if anybody's interested, figure out what they're interested in, and go for there.

At that time, there was really no It was a moment like that for me. I literally was thinking about going down to public access television and trying to do a show on public access television.

Because getting the chance to direct a feature film, see, entertainment was so much smaller. You said it was closed. It was a very insular world. There's three networks. 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. And especially if they have a preconceived notion. I'm sorry, you're the guy from Happy Days and you're OP.

Now, I could have had a chance to direct Happy Days episodes in a contract renegotiation, but I said no to that because I didn't want anybody other than Jerry Paris to direct. It would be not fair to the cast. And the other thing I thought was, well, what if I whiff? Every once in a while, an episode doesn't work. And if I do well, they say, well, it's his show. If I have an off episode, then he can't even direct his own show. It's three camera, not what I wanted to do. But Roger Corman was one of the few people who was taking that a risk. I knew that about him. He wanted me to act in a movie called Eat My Dust. I read Eat My Dust, and I didn't much care for it. I saw no Oscars in... No Oscar opportunities in that one. But I did have a script that I'd written that was a slice of life about a guy stuck over college break in Hollywood. I had some short films. I was supposed to go in and have this meeting about Eat My Dust. American Graffity had been a big hit.

Happy Days was becoming a number one show. Roger wanted me to be in this It was a car crash comedy. My agent was going to come with me to sit with me to have this meeting. He was my agent for my whole childhood. I remember saying, You can't go in with me. I was only 21, but I knew I was going to try to barter. He didn't care about that. I knew he didn't care about that. I remember the look on his face. He was shattered. I mean, his client said, No, don't go to the meeting. I went in, talked to Roger. I said, 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, 150,000. I needed another 150,000 in distribution. If you do that, then 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. He said, Here's what I'll promise 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 and the car crashes or the fights or something else. So I thought, okay, so my big... I leveraged my way into a second unit job. That's going to look great on the resume. But I took it. When Eat My Dust succeeded, I went in and I pitched so many different ideas, a sci-fi thing, a noir thing, just different kinds of projects. He smiled and he smiled and he said, He said, When we were testing... He was very erudite, Roger. I remember. He had been to Caltech, and he was an engineer at heart. He said, When we were testing titles for Eat My Dust, there was another title that 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'll probably make that picture.

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.

Roger Corman passed, I believe, a week ago.

A week ago, yes. Age 98. 98 years old. So sharp. I talked to him six months ago. He went to see my 13 Lives. He went to a screening. He was so supportive of all of his graduates. He just remained so connected.

He must have been incredibly proud of what you pulled off. He was proud All of us.

He's proud of all of us. Jim Cameron, Joe Dante, Allan Arkish, Hal, Francis Coppola, and Scorsese, Bogdanovic.

The list goes on. I had this great treat yesterday, which is I'm told I get to see an advanced copy of idea Man. I have a lot emotionally invested in this film because I have my own Jim Hensen connection. I watched the film, and it's fantastic. Oh, thank you. It's a fantastic documentary. There are so many things I learned about Jim Hensen that I did not know. Jim Hensen, I didn't realize his background growing up in this Christian science? Yes. His mom's a Christian scientist?

His mom's a Christian scientist. He wasn't formally because he wasn't all that religious. But of course, he was in that environment. But he was creative, he was smart, and he wanted to express himself. His dad was a bit of a scientist, like an agricultural scientist. They would travel around to different parts of the country, a lot of it in the south. But Jim was looking for that breakthrough. But it was a moment of transformation, and he seized that opportunity. But it's interesting that he wound up grabbing an ancient art form 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 radio was dead or vaudville had gone. And yet we all know that those mediums didn't vanish. There isn't a vaudville circuit per se, but there's stand up, there's Cirque de Soleil. The art forms are as as ever. I think you're so right, Cohn. I just think creative people figure out a way.

They find a way. What's fascinating to me is, Jim Hensen is very interested in puppets, poppeteering, and One of the things that he wants to do early on is, and I haven't thought of this before, but it's in your documentary, a lot of poppeteering was done just in a wide shot where you see- With the theater, with curtains and stuff. Presenium and little curtains, and the characters are all bashing each other and things are happening. I don't know if it's Jim Hensen or his wife Jane, but they understand that the TV camera has to be right up against the Muppets. You can see their expressions and you can see a character deflate. What's really fascinating to me is you have access in a documentary to all that early footage long before it's very sophisticated. It's basically Kermit, but they don't know it's Kermit yet. But the the puckering of the mouth 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 what basically looks like a kinescope. The technology is very crude But you can see, oh, my God, this guy- They're looking at the monitor and seeing, well, where is the camera and where do I fit in?

But the timing on this stuff was just fantastic. We interviewed Frank Oz. He was The family was great. They made the archives available, but also they made themselves available in a really significant way. And look, they're storytellers themselves. And so they recognize the need to share what they understood about their parents 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, I tried to channel Jim Hensen in that esthetic. A lot of stop motion, a lot of very kinetic cutting and some animations and things like that. The idea 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, me neither. They're cool. In fact, they anticipate a lot of what you're going to eventually see in commercials or even music videos. They're hard days night and stuff like that. Frank, we I 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. It's like a human being trapped just with himself and his ideas and thoughts. 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. I said, Frank, what if we did like, what if your entrance into the set? We were going to have you just come and sit down, but what if we did it stop motion? He, of course, instantly knew what to do. We put the camera up high. We had a chair, squiggle in, he'd come in and stop. He went in perfectly. One take laid out all the steps and all the beats so that we could do it.

It just established immediately for the editors and myself that we were going to inform this movie with this esthetic.

Well, also you were having fun, which is the essence Jim Hensen. My connection to it was that my whole reason I'm in comedy is I was always interested in comedy and doing it for my friends, 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 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 Hensen. Then she's my boss. I'm working for Lisa Hensen. Then Every now and then, Jim Hensen's around, and I'm losing my mind. I bet. He could not have been a sweeter, nicer man. In fact, Lisa graduates. I take over the Lampoon. At one point, Jim Hensen 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? You've never heard me say yes to anything more quickly. That's amazing. I said, Yes, how do I make this happen?

Because I'm just still a kid. I'm like, 19, and I'm going, Yes, Mr. Hensen. What do I? He said, and it's funny because when you're talking to Jim Hensen, you're talking to Kermit.

Kermit, yeah.

Kermit is on the other end of the line saying, Well, just get a van and come on down to New York and pick it up. You're an idiot. I'm like, Okay, Kermit and Hensen, bye. I hang up the phone. We rent a van, and my friend Mark Gannam and and Maya Williams, we jump in this van and we drive down to Manhattan. I'm petrified because I'm like, We're driving to Manhattan. Suddenly, it's like a Muppet movie, and I'm a Muppet. I'm going, What's happening? Beaker's Day Out. Yeah, exactly. I'm Beaker. We get there, and sure enough, there's like, Snuffalovicus is hanging from the ceiling, and they say, Oh, yeah, here's the chair. It's not that heavy because it's made of this super light material. We carry it a jewel.

It's amazing. We put it in the back of the van. I sat in one of those chairs at the studio. Yeah.

I drove it all the way back to Cambridge, and we put it in the Lampoon building. So cut to, I don't know, maybe nine months ago, I'm in Cambridge, and a student comes up to me and says, Hey, by the way, Konan, I'm on the Lampoon. Do 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. Oh, my God. A little banged up.

Yeah.

Just they drink. I mean, the puppet's drunk. It was that way when we got But anyway.

Amazing. Well, Lisa's fantastic. She's amazing. She's great. So is Brian. The whole family. Very talented. But it's a tribute to them because look, the reality is, and when you see the film, we deal with the family. Jim and Jane had an amazing, very unique and very specific romance and relationship and working relationship. The very thing that brought them together was the birth of this brainchild, the Muppets. Also was the thing that ultimately caused the relationship to erode and the romance to be lost. And yet 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, clear-eye way. And they knew they couldn't make this documentary themselves. They're creative, they're producers and directors and so forth. But I felt so fortunate that they would trust me, and I got very excited about it when I went to the studio here, the Chaplin-Hinson 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 could see the way that it influence the mainstream stuff that is so beloved that we all appreciate. 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, of course, there's a cost to that level of output. There's a human factor there. We're all the beneficiaries of all that hard work, but we didn't see all the things that he did that misfired and at the time disappointed him, including Labyrinth, which, of course, now is a classic.

You know what's interesting is that you go back and you look at these moments, and a lot of people forget this, but your documentary brings it back. I was a writer at Saturday Night Live for a couple of years. Then I'm doing the late night show, and our studio was on the sixth floor. Saturday Night Live Studio was on the eighth floor. But right down the sixth floor, not far down the sixth floor, there was a little office because in the early days of SNL, the first season Jim Hensen, Frank Oz, they're doing... The Muppets are part of SNL, and they had a little office, and they drew all of these characters on these pipes. Now, of course, it's been put behind glass and preserved. But in my day, you could just go by, and there's some pipes there, and they're just covered with- That's drawing.

Yeah, they're amazing.

I'm not trying to wipe them off because I like clean pipes. Oh, no. I just think pipes should be clean. But I couldn't get them off.

But that was a misstep for them, right? Because that didn't work out.

What's interesting is that all the cutting-edge, cool, sardonic Michael O'Donniehue's wise asses at first season SNL were like, These puppets. These puppets are here. I hate these puppets. It was very, you can tell in the documentary, crushing to Jim Hensen. Then he spirals off from that and creates The Muppet Show.

Yeah, but he'd been trying to sell The Muppet Show for years and failing. I mean, all the networks turned it down twice. There's a hilarious pitch video that they made.

Using the Muppets to sell the idea.

Yeah, and going completely over the top. It's Jim's voice, and it's just brilliant. It's so interesting because Jim You got to really know him. I met him only once, but he's so shy and retiring in person. You think of him as a performer, but not with a microphone, not with a camera on his face. It's through the puppets. We were talking about Andy and Dawn, but 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. Not just Bert and Ernie, but Ms. Piggy and Kermit. There's a great bit in there with Fawzia and Kermit, and this is timing. I mean, it's like precision comedy timing, and they just nailed bits.

Well, I think that's the thing is good comedy is good comedy. If you're making it for kids on CBS or you're making it for adults, good timing is good timing. That's why I always got my timing from early on from Warner Brothers' cartoons because they were shown as shorts in theaters to adults. They weren't condescending. So the timing was pitch perfect on those. Then I think the same thing with when you look at a really good Sesame Street bit, it's just good. There's no condescension of, Well, this is funny, four kids.

But I didn't realize how many of those bits that Jim directed. I just thought he brought the Muppets and performed, and they did that. I didn't realize that all those bits that used to catch my attention when three-year-old Bryce was watching them were the counting bits and these great little experimental things that would make me sit down and watch the show and admire what was going on there and envy it a little bit. And later I realized, well, that was one of the reasons Jim did it, because he never wanted to do kids programming. But they said, Bring the Muppets, but we'll also let you do your experimental films. But how about doing them for kids so that they can learn? And he had a son with severe learning disabilities. So that was something that he was clued into. And wouldn't you say that the reason it really worked at every level was that he was really a satirist, right?

Oh, definitely. It's always there. What's interesting is that the early way that he made money was by making television There are these Muppet commercials that I don't know if you've seen them, but they're in black and white. It's before anyone knew they were the Muppets. But you can tell it's the same, almost the same characters, but they're prototypes. But they're doing like Hormel Ham commercials. But they're very They last seven seconds long. But because they're seven seconds long, they're very meta. They're very today's sense of comedy. They're not by a Hormel Ham. 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. So they really broke through. They were doing some... There was almost always an explosion or a gunshot involved in a Hormel ham commercial somehow.

They made bacon. They're selling. They're pretty much selling anything. But they're doing ads the way we, as part of the podcast, we do ads. I always do them in my sensibility, my way, and then afterwards think, no one's going to pay for that. They do. You can leave this in. I don't think they should, but they do. Adam Sacks is going to take that out. Because they see the value of... We found out that they like that people listen to the ads.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, they were emotional without being sentimental. Definitely always had a point of view, and they always had something to say in and around the zaniness. But the Muppet show, I didn't think about it. I loved watching it. I didn't watch them religiously, but man, I watch them now. I mean, those episodes hold up. But I didn't realize that he was basically taking the English dance hall, almost like vaudville, their version, and applying that to the show.

He was making them in England.

Yeah. It's once again, what's old is new when put through this filter.

You mentioned earlier, I knew Jim well, and I can't say I did. I met him on a few occasions, and he was really nice. 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 Konan's got a look or something. He's irritating, but he's got a look. Jim Hensen suggested that I audition for something for one of his shows. I remember they sent over. I've told this, but they sent over sides that had two actors, two characters, and I didn't know which one he wanted me to audition for. I showed up and said to the woman who was running the audition, it says Steve and Mitch, and I don't know which is which. She said, Oh, here's the character breakdowns. She handed me Steve, and it said, Women want to be with him. Men want to be him. He oooses sexuality. I was just deflating. Then I said, Can I see the one for Mitch? She had a new Mitch. She was like, This gangly, goofy, red-topbed goon stumbles his way through life. But people like him despite his many flaws and his asexuality.

I went, I think I'm the second guy. But no, this is a lovely tribute. 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 this- 53 years old. 53 years old. I was invited to that memorial. 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. 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. He just decided to write this in case he ever passed suddenly, and he did. It was so lovely. Then all the characters come out, and we're all laughing and crying at the same time. You show footage of the memorial service, and I was there. I, to this day, have thought thought, that's what everyone should be like. It can't be because we're not all Jim Hensen, but that's what it should be. It really should be a celebration.

Well, it clearly was. And his son, Brian, read that letter, and we have a bit of that in the... Oh, my God. It was a tremendous tribute and moment. But he's so loved. I mean, everybody we interviewed, 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, he literally was just a guy who lived in a positive light. He struggled, ups and downs, difficulties on a personal side in the relationship, sure. And yet set such a great example, how you navigate that, too. I mean, win-in is easy, but when you struggle, that defines the man or the woman. And you look at both Jim and Jane, and you say, Well, that's We should do that.

The documentary is atomic. I would recommend. Just watch it because you will laugh very hard, but it's also informative about so much more. You are the right guy to make this because you have, just in every single decade of your life, contributed good stuff. I think that's... Who can say that? That's really remarkable. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so glad I know you. I'm so glad you let me your arm off 30 years ago.

We're still at it. We're still going through.

We're still going through.

Let's do a leg.

I checked out his leg on the way in. That left one looks like it could go in any time. Anyway, make sure Jim Hensen, idea man, it's a gift, and make sure that you check it out. Ron Howard, you're a gift. Thanks so much for being here. Great to be here. Let's get together, get a drink, and talk sunscreen whenever you want. Beautiful.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam Ofsessian, and Matt Gourley.

Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, nick Liao, and Jeff Rossett, Team Coco, and Colin O'Brien, Alan Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolfe. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.

Engineering and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brenda Burns.

Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent Booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Brit Kohn. 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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