Hey, look at that handsome scout who's out of the background. Oh, we got all kinds of people here today because my sons have deigned to join me because we love you so much. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Boys, say hi. What's up? Good looking group and some jeans. Thank you.

They were curious to see if your hair had grown back or if you are still going with the pitbull thing.

No, that was just for the show. It was not a sustainable look or a lifestyle. I looked like people drowned.

Hello, everybody, welcome to the show. Welcome to literally with me Rob Lowe. It's a big day because my sons, Matthew and John Owen are so excited about today's guest that they are here with me.

All the people I've had cool people on the show, they could care less.

I mean, if you listen to this podcast, to be totally honest, I know my wife doesn't, but they're here because we have Eric Andre, who we are, the little boys are obsessed with. And I'm calling myself a boy. We love the Eric Andre show. It's if you haven't seen it, it's on Adult Swim. It's hilarious. It's its fifth season just came out. And it is everything that I love about comedy where you watch it and you go.

Who thought of this and. More importantly, who paid for this? It's it is the the the definition of subversive. And cutting edge and silly and smart and profoundly stupid all at the same time, which is a wonderful concoction, and I can't wait to get into how his mind works and how he came up with this crazy show. So stay tuned, Minarik Andre with the Lowboy is being superfans in the background.

Coming up. So that wasn't a ball, you weren't wearing a bald cap that you actually shaved your head for your show that's shaped shaved my head and my legs waxed my pubis. The pubis even waxed my pubis.

My pelvic bone, my anus and testicles didn't hurt as much as the front part of my pubis, the front part, not the middle part of the back part.

The front part. What would be the front part? I can't even imagine.

Above my above my penis. Below my belly button. That mid range was excruciating.

But it is a big part of your show sometimes to reveal to reveal your not only your innermost person, but your actual body. Nude body.

I've seen it with my own eyes. Yes. Yes. My body is a communion to the people. It is.

And I find that some people are more into it than others.

Yeah. And you never know until you show. That's our motto in their show.

Do you ever have a sense when you book a gastrique. Oh yes. This is going to be great. And then you're surprised. You're not surprised.

Are really the best people to prank on Earth are gay men and black women. They are the most emotionally. A motive. I've got to get brave men, black women and black black women do not reserve their emotions. They are they do not suppress their emotions. They wear their emotions on their sleeve. And that's great for a prank show because they they tell me to fuck off with no hesitation. So you'll see this season, it's a lot of games.

You don't want like a you don't want like a stuffy old white British guy, like a business man, because they'll be like, wow, that's weird. I'm I'm going to bring. You want like an Olympic figure skater to be like, oh, my God. You want that reaction now when you when you prank someone just on a technical level, this I always think it's interesting to tell people who don't know how TV is made. We just assume everybody knows how TV is made because we've been doing it for so long.

But to get them on the show after you prank them, you've got to get them to sign the release. Right. And if they don't, then you just got to, like, pixilate their faces out. How does that work?

So when we do hidden camera pranks in the streets, you get there, you have to ask them to sign the release afterwards because obviously you don't want to let them know that they're on camera until the pranks over. Right. But for the guests that we prank in the studio, the cameras are over. It's part of the conceit that it's just like a regular wacky talk show. But then so they're prerelease. They sign ahead of time. Right. So then then we set off explosives.

And one release release cockroaches. Is there someone underneath the chair a lot? Is that what goes on? Yeah, we have we have people underneath that. We built the stage up on like a riser this year so that we get we had like a whole crew. Our entire art department was living underneath the guests perineum for most of the good services. This is my guess, is that to the left of me is your producer is just laughing at what?

And it really does help. But it does help comfortable. But they're tight. They're silent, they're muted. But they're laughing. Like usually the producers like they get the ball rolling that they hop up, they're just chilling. But I actually like it because I'm not that funny. So I need an air, actually. That's why that's happening. And that's why they're there. I mean, because when we were starting the podcast, we had a whole discussion about it and I was like, no, I like to see you sort of half laughing.

It makes you go, OK, I'm on a good track or their eyes are glazing over. I got to move on to something else.

It's a good barometer. It's where are where are you? You're are you in Malibu? No, no, I'm in I'm in Santa Barbara, where you you you grew up in the booth though, right? I did. Oh. The book. Are you familiar with the book.

Well, you I heard you in an interview say that Malibu used to be working class like firefighters lived out there. Was it Shishir Richie Rich? It was just kind of like old school. And I can't yeah. I can't fathom that.

Well, like, Martin Sheen has lived there since nineteen seventy four. Bought his house for thirty five thousand dollars. How is that possible.

When did when did rich people find out about it? I guess because Topanga Canyon is the same thing where it was like it was like hippies can afford to live out there and hippies can't even afford to live in a house.

Well, I remember when it kind of started with Bob Dylan, secretly bought up a bunch of ranch houses under a phony name so people wouldn't notice him.

And then he built a ginormous compound and then Johnny Carson did did the same.

And that sort of started the big time celebrity live in Beverly Hills in the seventies. And then, like it was working class people out Malibu. And then the rich people figured out, like, this is amazing.

That's right. That's right.

You you had a beautiful childhood.

Your childhood was cinematic. It was Cinemateca, there always some famous people there, but they were like iconoclastic weirdos, like you would see.

Bruce Dern running the Pacific Coast Highway and dolphin shorts oiled up. Every day on your way into or or, you know, Chevy Chase would rent a beach house during the the time when he was debating whether to return to SNL and sort of trip on acid and stare at the ocean. So there was always cool shit going on.

But the people who actually lived there and made the place go or were firefighters and architects and just regular regular people. And like anything else, it's when the suits came in, that's when it it's like anything else.

The minute the suits come in. Everything changes. Yeah. So now you're in Santa Barbara. Yep. Because it's it's kind of when I had kids, I wanted to have the boys have the sort of a similar thing or not. Every single person is involved in show business. Because I remember I remember when when Matthew, my oldest was we were trying to find a preschool for him and I was asking around in L.A. about preschools and someone said, oh, you really need to talk to Mike Ovitz, who is then the head of the Creative Artist Agency in the most powerful agent.

I thought if I have to live in a town where I have to talk to my agent to get my kid into preschool, I'm going to blow my brains out.

So I moved. That's what I did. That was it.

Now, where where are you? Right. Right. As we speak. You and Topanga.

No, no, no. I'm on Adult Swim. I can't afford basic cable at 4:00 in the morning during boner pill commercials. I'm in Echo Park, which is the Topanga Canyon of the East. Yeah, typical perks, like a lot of berets and fedoras, right?

Is that that's what I think of when I think about know a lot of a lot of French revolutionaries and Algerian separatists.

No, no, no, no fedoras out here, but so adorable.

That's what my friend Derek says was adorable. Yeah.

No, that's more like turn of the last century, Paris. I don't know why a lot of these people get that confused a lot.

1920S Paris with with 20, 20 Echo Park does nobody smoking Gaulois and like waxing poetic about socialism and going to the coffee house there yet?

Yes. Yes, there is waxing poetic that there are hipsters. There are wax.

That's all I'm saying. That's all. That's all I'm saying. But but a beret is more of a beatnik. There's a new one. Yes. There's a nuanced distinction there that I want to get.

What's that? OK, so your your prank is you're playing a current contemporary of the moment hipster. What would be the wardrobe?

I think I'm wearing it right now. I think playing that role 24/7.

Unfortunately, the headphones give it away.

You know what else is interesting? You and I both were raised in households with psychiatrists.

Really? Your mom or your dad? My step father. Really? Yeah. So that was yours.

As weird as mine was, my yes is still weird. He he is in outer space. Oh yeah. He's like on a moonbeam. There's no. There's he's unpredictable. I put it like it did you did you wake up on Saturday mornings and want to go watch cartoons, but you had to be quiet because there was a patient.

In other part of the house now, he didn't see patients in the house and he didn't bring his work home with him, so he never psychoanalyze me or anything. And he's a psychiatrist. He's more of a drug dealer than then. Like, he's not Freudian. He's not like, tell me what your childhood was like because he was shaping it.

But no, no, no patients in the house and he really didn't really want to talk about work when he got home. I would like try to pull it out of them, but he only wants to talk about basketball and politics.

It's the only two things, really. That's it.

Yeah, I had I had the exact opposite. I had, like, he was union. So there's a lot of like what was your tell me your dreams. Well, I'd want to be a baseball player. No, no, no. I mean, did you dream of your mother or whatever it was like.

That's kind of cool. Yeah. My dad is a third world country. My dad's from the Caribbean too. So he's more he's he's Haitian. So he's more Haitian than his psychiatrist. So, like, Haitians are only like they only talk about politics. Sports are women. So I don't think you want to talk about women with his son, but he definitely only obsessed over politics and basketball. That was his it was he was Haitian before he was a psychiatrist.

But, yeah, he wasn't. He's oddly like a.. Therapist.

What time? I was like, dad, I got to I was like talking on the phone and I was like, Dad, I got to hop off. I just pulled up to my therapist and he goes, therapy. Those people just tell you what they want, what you want to hear. And I was like, you're anti therapy and you're a psychiatrist. And he's like and I was like picking his brain about Sigmund Freud. One time he goes, Freud.

That guy was a Coke head. It's like he's very anti therapy for being a psychiatrist. I was like, who do you send your patients to when they are like, I need therapy in conjunction with my medicine? So I don't know. He's on a moonbeam.

I can't we ever we ever attempted to steal his in triplicate. I love that. I knew that that's what that was. The triplicate is the prescription pad that has three different levels that you sign to get the drugs.

OK, well, you talk to your father, your stepdad more than I talk to my father.

No, I wasn't that smart and I wasn't into pills until later in my adult life when I really needed him. Now I'm like now I have every member of the benzodiazepine family in my medicine cabinet. But but no, I was kind of a teetotaller. I smoked pot when I was young and. Like. I hit it acid every now and again, but like that I wasn't like. I was a little scared of pills, but then 20, 20 quarantine hit and now I'm like Waylon Jennings over here, I'm on the Johnny Cash diet.

Oh yeah. I mean, I think I think you're not alone. I think a lot of people were toiling. I mean, what do we do besides drink any pills? It's dangerous, but it's passing the time. I'll tell you that. Yeah.

What is your regimen? How do you how did you age so well? The other half of me is Jewish and we do not age well. What is going on? Jon Stewart has the best of Jon Stewart said Jews age like avocados. Like you, like you get guacamole. It's all green. You turn around, you order nachos and then you turn back to the bowling guacamole. It's like brown and soggy.

And what do you do? You got lotion? Do you eat salad? Is it just genetic? Is your idea? Is your father and some shit. Was he a silver fox into his old age or.

Well, all of the all of the above are true. My, my dad is, is eighty one and looks twenty years younger and there's a lot of lotion on man's skin care line. So you know a lot of it's that and, and I take care of myself but yeah it's a lot of it's genetics really. Do do you drink drink alcohol now.

I'm sober thirty years. That helps. That it does. I mean, first of all, it helps because when I drink, it always led to mayhem, which probably would have killed me if I'd have kept it up.

Also just into the calorie intake.

Think of it that way.

It's like you start you start having that glass of red wine every every night after work. And then maybe one of the I mean, that's that adds up over the years. It really does.

Yeah. But it's fun. It's a lot of it is fun. Let me tell you, I laid it out when I did it. I mean, did you do Coke? Oh, did you used to do you were a copywriter? Let's do the math. I was I was a teen heartthrob in show business in the nineteen eighties. Did I do coke? Let me think about that.

People forget. Here's what people forget about Coke is when it first came out, people thought it was good for literally good for you. They're like, oh, it makes you think Sigmund Freud was no dummy. He did coke. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then. And then it took years for the for the wreckage of that to get into the culture and people like and maybe that's not a good idea.

But when I came up that was a sign that you are a running with the right the cool crowd and that you were successful. That's what I did. You went to the Laker game and you you and Jack Nicholson went to a little broom closet together. And, you know, you're what, in show business cash.

So it was like, I mean, who doesn't who doesn't want to? I mean, why go to the Laker games if you can't be on Coke and your good seats?

I mean, you're making a lot of sense right now, though. I can't argue with that. Now, ask me about my show. I've interrupted you 15 times because it's a it's a drug question.

When I watch the show, I feel like I can smell pot smoke sometimes image, you know, watching that.

There's a lot of pot going on.

I'm I'm not a big pot guy. Pot makes me I smoke pot. I smoke just a little bit before bed. I watch TV and then I go to sleep. It doesn't it makes me very antisocial and it kind of gets me in my head. It just it doesn't totally hit me. Right. Really the big. Drug of choice, especially in the writers room, is coffee. Oh, it is it is a caffeinated show, but yeah, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

So like any anything, any drug are harder than coffee. We we won't last like Adderall kind of. It makes me kind of grind my teeth and it kind of makes me crash and. Coke is too fleeting, expensive, it's too expensive, too too expensive bleeding, like you said, you're on your own adult swim.

You can't afford Coke, you can't afford Coke. So really. Yeah, the main drug of choice onset is coffee.

My I'm it's a little bit of a deep dive, but my favorite thing of yours has to be the octopus. When you went into the restaurant.

I can't believe I'm hearing this from Rob Lowe, a man who is an institution.

It's well and it's and my boys are the ones who continually come out.

Come back. Come on in here, guys like I like to sit on the carpet and your son lurking in the grave that they are they've never come down for any guest on his podcast.

If they really are, I am flattered that they could care less. They could be like like Gwyneth Paltrow.

Get her out of here. Like Demi Moore, Magic Johnson.

They don't even know you're an actor. They have no idea. What do they think now? They think you're in real estate or something.

Now they're the ones who want to know about the or the octo. I'm the octopus. The octopus.

When good was a pain in the ass to shoot, we almost got arrested. And and I just like that that costume is very uncomfortable. And I think we destroyed it after season four. So it didn't make a return. Season five.

And also also the the little people that were by tentacles were not happy with that bit. I don't think that some some of them were happier than others. So I don't think they knew how violent it was going to get because people were getting very upset with us. Who come who comes up with that?

You you're not on pot. No one's high.

When they come up with the idea, we're eventually we're hired because the end of the day, I'd say, oh, Dan Curry, my writing partner, came up with that who's who's the like my my co-writer on the show EP very, very probably the funniest person I know. But he just came out, he, like his eyes were rolling in the back.

It was we were like exhausted at the end of the day in writer's room, you know, we only have like a few good hours in the morning. Then after lunch, we're like, not worth a shit. And yeah. And we're we're just at that final hour of exhaustion in the writers room. And he just. Started speaking in this octopus talk in week, Alice in Wonderland character type octopus. We started watching all these videos of like octopuses, not octopi, which I just found out, octopuses unscrewing jars that had food in it.

And they're really smart. And scientists study them because they have like this alien kind of thought pattern. And so we just thought it'd be super funny to have this, like, pretentious octopus that was just like this kind of debutante aristocrat character. You'd have to ask Dad, I can't take credit for that, but it's too funny.

So I maybe we'll maybe we'll bring back the octopus.

I don't know why we go. I want to do something with the octopus. I want to do with the octopus.

I wish you came on the show. Why don't you come on the show. I will. Let's do it. Let's make it happen. I'm in. So I'm officially and I'm saying yes, I want to. So I want to. I want to be in beautiful.

What who does. The thing I love is who's mixing your show. Who's doing the sound effects and.

Oh that's, that's my editors. So we have yeah.

We have a team of editors that are they're really funny at the sound of effect.

They make sure they make the show and just the stupid shit like the laser beams and freeze frames coming out of people's eyes and.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever know the show Wonder shows them. Yeah.

I'm buddies with those guys. I'm working with them on a project. John and Vernon. Yeah. That huge, huge influence on my show.

I was going to say it feels like a companion piece to Wonder Shows, which is also one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things that ever existed, or one of the best one of the best shows of all time for sure.

People out there listening. If you've never heard of wonder shows, and I promise you, you haven't three people in the world knew about it, but the three people who love it love it where it would work. You even see Wunder shows.

And now you can you can have the DVD, you can watch it. I'm sure you can watch it online. I'm sure you can download it on iTunes. Yeah, it's an MTV show. So wherever you can buy MTV shows, you can buy one of your shows. The sad thing is that they got slapped on MTV to know no marketing behind it. No nobody promoted it. Nobody watched MTV too. I feel like they would have done so much better on Adult Swim, but I don't think they could even rerun it.

A swim, because once owned by Turnon One's Viacom. So but whatever that's been getting corporate. But yeah, that's one of the best shows of all time. Huge influence. Oh, sure. I think it's the fastest show on television. It's like each segment is just like one joke and then they keep it moving, which I love and I love it.

You're working with them. What can you tell me what you're working on?

I cannot. And I probably said that I don't. Oh, we've got a. Hold that thought. We'll be right back. Have you ever have you ever fell off the wagon or came close to slipping, and how do you behave yourself?

I've been lucky that I have not. I think part of it was when I was when I was done on my my my campaign of alcohol and all of it, I, I was I was really done. I mean, I was I was done. I'd, I, I'd ridden that horse as far as I could. I'd had a blast. I don't I don't regret any of it. In fact, I look back fondly actually on a lot of it.

And I was just done I, I my life wasn't working the way I wanted it to work anymore.

And I knew the reason that it wasn't was in large part because of that.

And I was lucky enough to know, were you sober on Wayne's World or was that I just gotten sober on Wayne's World. That was the big. Yeah, that was the beginning of your sobriety.

Yep, I was. Was it hard being on set and having the pressure of being on set sober? Because I know a lot of people, a lot of actors drink to kind of self medicate and calm their nerves even while they're filming.

I was the opposite. I was. I never was. I never did any of that when I worked. It was when I had free time, free time, an idle mind and free time have always been my enemy. Like I'm I'm good.

When you were, like, sipping whiskey out of a flask between between takes. Oh, it's amazing. We had we had we had a rare, not a rare, rare. I heard a rare pronouncing her her name wrong for 30 years. We had to on this season. I don't know if her episode aired yet. I think it's airing Sunday actually.

Your co-star. See, this is perfect. Kismet. I'm I don't I don't want you to ruin the episode. But I'd like to know. We we sent her to the moon, we said to them she was like, why?

Why we had explosives going off and I was firing real guns and stuff like that. She was not prepared, so. Even at this rate, when people have an idea of what the show is, you still get people who aren't really prepared, or do you have to feel like you have to up yourself every time? A little bit of both.

I always feel like I have to do the previous season, but we kind of just intentionally cast people that would probably never have seen the show or heard of Adult Swim.

Do you have a list? Oh, by the way, I love that I'd be a good parlor game. Boys, we should do this later.

Let's make a list of people who have never heard of Adult Swim. That would be that in and of itself is funny to me.

I mean, certainly that list, because those are the perfect people to get on the chair.

Well, number one, Mike Pence, you know, it's not swim in his eyes that he's unemployed in two months.

So he's he's he's available. He's available. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. I would love it to be a champion guest champion. It'd be one for the ages. We'd released a bunch of flies to land on us.

We train flies to land and there are you could be a fly. It's the octopus. You. I want your head. I want your head. I raptor's I love the octopus that touches my heart. I love. I am the octopus.

The people in that restaurant. We're not having it. Some of them are quite angry.

They're upset. I mean I was a nuisance. I mean rightfully so. Their anger is justified. But here's the thing.

What I, what I like about the show. Another thing I like is I'm not a prank show guy. I like I don't like. I know it's a prank show.

And I know you describe it as a prank show, but I don't see it as a prank show because when I think of pranks, there's an inherent meanness to it.

And your show's not mean ever. And like there's like I know people love punkt. I know they love it. It's a huge hit. I get it. I could never watch it made me so uncomfortable. Yeah. That I could never watch it. Maybe because the prank was so belaboured. Yeah. Without, without being funny maybe.

I don't know but I never have that, I never that feeling watching your show.

What, why do you think that that is.

That's by design. I mean like we. We kind of learned this the hard way in the very beginning, like pranks can't be malicious. You know, a lot of comedy, the main the main ingredients of comedy are intent and context. So you need to you can't have malicious intent. And there's got to be context and subtext. There's going to be even if the bit itself is very, very dumb, there's going to be like a mind and an intelligence behind what you're doing.

And I think just through our process, we kind of. After the rioting, after we kind of have the first version of the script, me and my writing partner Dan and my director Ketel Will we will rehearse the shit out of every street bit and every even even the pranks in the studio, like just to kind of carve away anything that feels mean or punching down or mean spirited. So it's like a lot of rehearsal and rewriting go into the process before we start shooting.

And even even after we're done shooting and we're in the editing bay, if something feels kind of mean spirited and gross, we'll try to carve it out. We don't always, like, knock it out of the park, but like, yeah, I just don't think the show would be watchable if it was mean spirited or we were punching down. You know, it's supposed to be like absurd. Pranks are supposed to be absurd and you're supposed to be distorting people's reality.

And that's why it's like watchable and funny, not because you're being mean.

So I think but I think that's the part is is the absurdity element. Like when I watch punkt, it's not really that absurd. Like yours is clearly other level of reality as people.

And that's what's fun is seeing people that's in that's the winner shows in part when you know where it's it's the talking puppet in the street asking people what we know who are jogging through Central Park.

What are you reading from that day? I love that. You know, that that that bit specific. You're a super fan by that. I'm charmed by that. Oh, good.

I mean, listen, let's whatever you're cooking up with those guys, I think you need a handsome asshole. That's kind of what I haven't been doing in comedy.

I'm thinking about Wayne's World. Did you shoot any scenes with. Wayne Garth, I feel like a lot of your scenes were isolated, where you just shooting on? Did you ever get to? Was there a lot of crossover, just like Act three? Right. I saw no know.

I have a great there's a great scene where I have to explain to Wayne and Garth at a at a at a Hawaiian themed restaurant why they should sign the rights to Wayne's World over to me, which always makes.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if you have a lot of scenes with your career, I had I kind of I think my character was observing her from afar because that's what he secretly wanted.

Most of my scenes were with with Dana, Mike and Brian Doyle Murray, who was the sort of investor I was.

Right. Right, right. Yeah. And it's all coming back to me. It's all going well. It's funny because like a lot of iconic movies, you'll be you'll finally get a chance to talk to the actor that played the villain and be like, what was it like working with so and so and so and so. And they're like, I only shot with them one day because we only meet up in Act three. Dennis Hopper and Keanu Reeves only shot like one day together on speed or whatever.

Maybe that maybe that's a bad example.

But like, you don't think about it from a production standpoint because you're like, oh, yeah, they only overlap at the very end of Act three and they have to be in the same scene they finally made up. So it's like the actors always like, I don't know, I met that guy once, 30 years ago. He seemed nice. I would talk to him for the 12 hours we shot and then we went home and but you feel like, oh, my God, they must have been like on tour together, like they're a band or something.

Well, now it's even even worse of the movies.

I have friends who are in like Avengers movies and some of them don't even know what movies they're in because they honestly they're like, am I in that movie?

It's like because they they shoot one part for one movie while they're shooting this other movie and then it's in a green screen and this person isn't available. So they're going to put them in. They literally have no idea what movie they're even in anymore. That's right in there.

So they're so secretive with the scripts. They're only giving you like like sides. Right. You know, they don't even have Bohl. They're just getting it piecemeal and day of in like a lock box and shit like that.

Right. We did that on Tommy Boy. Oh, yeah. You know, we you know, we only gave Farly the scenes that he was.

Yeah.

This was he was untrustworthy with the plot, the intricate plot of Tommy Boy. We sort of started that trend. I'm glad to see that.

It's my big Tommy boy. Might be my favorite movie of all time. I think it's the hardest I've ever laughed in a movie theater, probably like Top Tied with Borat, but it's all really clever. Yeah. Boycie here that here that the great Eric Andre Gister that the hardest he's ever left in the movie theater. Tommy Boy over Borat, which is our personal other favorite of your scene.

He didn't say you're there saying he didn't say my scenes can't win, can't win, cannot win.

And we'll be right back after this. I like is a little movie. Is this your little movie theater going there's this got my little screen there, you know, and that's what I usually watch sports now, though, it's like I've gotten out of the habit of going to movies.

It sounds awful, but I figure it's really hard for me to, like, get it up to to see a movie.

I don't know what it's hard for me to get it up to, but that's because Propecia along the puppyish. Let's do this is this is a medical science is holding this together.

Did a baby from the age of 30. Let's put it up. But he's got to get the thing.

We've got to get the testosterone down. So there are gums up. I know what phonagnosia down.

So the hair goes up was it is a choice between my boner and my hair and oh, I'm always choosing my hair.

Kidding. Oh yeah. Got to, got to. There's no life without it. I don't.

Do you understand people who you you're watching in real time as they're losing their hair. Yeah. And you're going what's happening. LeBron James. What's, what's happening. What's, what's going on. LeBron James needs to go see Macanese guy. Let's be real. He needs it better. It is a better wizard.

And McConaughey has been such an early adapter to all all hair technology. He's yeah. I mean, he he there are crazy pills he was taking and doing commercials for at one point.

And he's he's LeBron is not going to the right guy.

You need the game. You need the right guy.

And yeah. LeBron LeBron talked to me after the after the podcast. OK, I'm an old couple. I know a couple of I got hair in my mouth. That's how it affected my guys. Growing hair ton.

That's the screengrab for this episode. You would be terrified. That's it. That's it. That's that's that's the.

I'll play a character called Hair Ton. I look really, really good until I go.

You know, the one thing I put hair on is like, how did you shoot it on the air?

That's what this is.

Why like when I first watched SNL in nineteen seventy five, when I watch Wonder Shows and when I watch your show, I had the same reaction, which is how the fuck did this get on the air.

I mean and that's what I, I still ask myself that about my own show, but I don't know. The Adult Swim is awesome. They have. This isn't to toot my own horn. They have good taste and they let me they give me and all of the show creators complete creative freedom. I couldn't be in a more nurturing network. They're just. I don't know, they they get because the guy who founded. Adult Swim Mike LASO, who's like my mentor.

He's like my Obi Wan Kenobi. He created Space Coast, which I don't know if you ever saw that, but yes, a very absurd psychedelic mock talk show. So we have like a kinship. I don't know. You know, he he's like my comedy. Dad, so I don't know. So when he saw the first kind of sizzle reel that we made on our own dime in an abandoned bodega in Brooklyn, he was just charmed by it and gave us the green light.

Thank God, because everybody else and we couldn't even get a meeting anywhere else, like Comedy Central, IFC Facts, Tru TV, all the comedy that comedy cable networks were like, no thanks, I didn't even want they. They're like, oh, they're cool, but no thanks. I didn't even want to meet with me. So thank God I swim was like, yes, please.

What and what made you decide you were going to pay for it yourself?

Well, I mean, that means like it was a three hundred dollar budget thing that I shot in a rat's nest, abandoned building.

I had no other choice. Would it, like in the show wouldn't translate through a script? I knew that it was like very frenetic and psychedelic in its tone. So it needed to be filmed. So we filmed. We filmed some interviews and some monologues and some musical guest in this like abandoned building, and then we went out to this like Civil War reenactment and I dressed like a slave, my friend Jermaine, and we like crashed a civil war reenactment.

We aired that actually season one. We crashed the Civil War reenactment with my friend, friend Renshon, who follows around with a whip.

And he was like, Your name is Toby. And we were like, good day. And we were like running away from home and screaming through this real life civil war reenactment, hidden camera. And we did another hidden camera prank where I dressed like Ronald McDonald, and I barged into a McDonald's in Manhattan smoking a cigarette. And I fired everybody behind the counter and I started drinking whiskey and crying.

And so we we filmed that stuff on our own and got it in the hands of the head of adults when it's so, so great.

And I was like, those stories are great for people to hear because today you can go out and shoot your own stuff. And sometimes you got to do that when the vision is so, so specific and original. And that's what everybody wants anyway. But nobody wants to hire original or pay for it until they see it.

A lot of times it's hard to convince them until they see it. Yeah, and that's what I knew. I was like, this isn't I can't just, like, build a little deck with, like, visuals and like have a script that's not going to tramp. You are going to be like, huh. So I just felt like my acting teacher had the best. She's like, you can't give people a reason to say no. You have to like every square inch of your choices and whatever you present has to be like undeniable so that they get.

Well, I can't say no about that. They didn't fuck that up. He didn't fuck that up. I can't say no about that. And I don't give them a reason to say no. So that's kind of was my. It's funny because that's what I I always say to people who want to begin to produce and create their content. So we have to realize as the people that you're going to go and try to get money from are looking for a reason to say, no, they're never looking for a reason to see us ever.

Yeah, it's safer for them to say no, because if they say yes and give you a bunch of money and then you fuck it up or it gets fucked up. Then it's their ass that gets fired, executives get fired all the fucking time, so it's on them. If something gets fucked up, so it's like safer for them to say no job security was, so you got to give them like an undeniable and any not just pitching shows, but when you're auditioning, you know what I mean?

You can't the casting you have to make. The casting director has to say yes. And the producers have to say yes. You know, everybody has to say yes until you get the job. You just have to be until it's in the fucking ass. Don't do it. If you look look at me. I'm looking into my camera. Don't do this to yourself. Go to med school, become a Jungian psychiatrist, I think.

Boys, are you listening? I tried this. One of my sons listened. He went to law school and and the bar is a law degree. And the other son went to Stanford and then decided coming out with straight A's that he wanted to be in this fucking business. So I'm I'm I'm batting five hundred one. Listen to one. Didn't I get over here?

I write for the show he's currently on. He's like, fuck you, Dad. He said he right.

He does have a job writing on for Ryan Murphy. And then Ryan put him on my show figuring my actual son would be able to write proper dialogue for that.

So that got a job but is giving you the middle finger. I would say this. I would say that the advice is never try to be in show business.

The best advice I got was from a songwriter like this old school songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, who said quit if you can, meaning if there's a burning in your soul where you just cannot quit and you have to do it, rather whether you succeed or fail, then go for it.

But quit, if you can, I thought was an interesting way to articulate it. I'm also like, take my advice with a grain of salt. Who the fuck am I?

But yeah, quit if you can to.

I'm a curator of of of of great quotes and inspirational things. I've never. That's amazing. I'm stealing. I'm so stealing that. Yeah. When my son wants to get into acting, my daughter wants to be an actress, I want to be and I might quit if you can.

Yeah. Stealing it. Yeah. Steal it. It's not mine. Take it. Go. It's public domain. Go forth. Quit if you can. Who was that.

Do you remember who the songwriter was. I'm kind of obscure.

I don't. I went to a music school, I went to Berklee College of Music and my senior trip was to Nashville, Tennessee. And we met with all these songwriters and bluegrass people, blah, blah, blah. And the one I don't remember what his name was, but he was very he was kind of this very existential country songwriter who was he kind of looked like. He look like a nerdy, gigantic Kenny Rogers.

I think you described 90 percent of the songwriters I know in Nashville of that era, like a Michael McDonough, white beard, white hair, kind of a Santa Claus and glasses, but bulky. But he was like a gentle giant and he was very existential. Then he said, quit if you can. And I really like that. And I pivoted. I quit music. Right, that I like quit music towards the end of school and pivoted to comedy.

What was your what was your instrument? I was an upright bass player. I prefer funny Eric Andre to upright bass playing Andre. I think the world thinks you do do do do you want to see that it's right down here? Here. Yeah.

Yeah, right. Oh, yeah. Give me something to do. Yeah, there it is. Wait, I want to hear something. Can you give me something?

I can I can kind of play something shitty. I am like of years like I'm twenty 20 years. Rusty let me see. All I have to say wait, I've got a comment on that wallpaper. Oh, it's from the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I know it is, but you think I don't know. Can I have a milkshake in a club? A club sandwich, please?

Is a Miles Davis site.

It's not really. I mean, it doesn't sound like anything without the trumpet.

Ba ba ba ba ba ba. So, yeah, that's how a hundred twenty thousand dollars a year would go down the drain.

Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. Where did you get so you literally have the wallpaper from the Beverly Hills Hotel in your house? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's how did you do this? This is I'm I'm obsessed with that wallpaper. Always. I went to I went to the Beverly Hills Hotel. I just saw ripping it off. Yeah.

What now you can buy it at like West Elm or something.

And really I thought it was like a thing. Well, not so.

It's a thing. It's a thing. But you can like buy it for six bucks on Amazon. Jonathan has a question.

You need to write the question down. You can just be open about it all. They want to hear about the RNC with Alex Jones.

So when you crashed the Alex Jones rally, it looks like he's down to clown and then kind of goes, well, yeah, well, that was blind luck.

We literally hopped out of our passenger van to just shoot some, like, warm up material. And this is before Trump got elected. So all the Magga people were kind of still on the fringe. Alex Jones was fringe. None of those guys were mainstream yet. So I wasn't as to and it was a Bikers for Trump rally. It was like a bunch of Hells Angels dude, open carry state. All those guys were armed to the teeth. But I was just like, you know, kind of walk around the crowd.

I had this, like long my trying to interview Alex Jones from the audience with this gigantic cartoonish boom microphone, thinking I would just get shooed away.

And that was it. And then out of nowhere, he goes, bring the Daily Show guy up here.

I don't know who he thought if he thought I was Trevor Noah or why.

It's like I still don't know because I get The Daily Show guy up here, like he's not going to draft me. I'll raise him about politics.

And then my mind goes, just say don't say anything about politics. Just go. I want you to fuck my wife. Here's my hotel room key. I don't care about politics. I'm just here for you to fuck my wife. And he didn't know how to cope with that. It was the best way to get under his skin and they were not happy with me. That was kind of like I don't know if I noticed anything that dangerous.

Again, before Koven We were going to go back to the RNC in this year, but there was no RNC. I mean, there was like a weird digital RNC or whatever that was the best is yet.

There was that lady. She would have been my Alex Jones this year.

But I do think you you need to work your way through that organization, though, for sure, because that's not a big demo for Adult Swim. So, you know. Yeah, they haven't watched any of it. Right.

I mean, we've tried to get politicians on the show every season and it's very, very difficult to get them into the studio with Sacha Baron Cohen does are just brilliant and kind of like once you're like, oh yeah, no shit, why don't I do that? He goes to that. He's always like getting a hotel room in Washington, DC.

He's going to like they're stomping grounds and being like, oh, you know, we'd love to interview you. You're great really.

Rudy Giuliani or whoever. So we don't have the budget to go. You go to them, but yeah, we can't get them to come to us. It's been kind of impossible.

Who's your dream? Who's your dream guest in the acting world? Bill Cosby.

No, Cosby are not big fans of the activist is a big fan of the cross.

Jesus. Yeah. Bill Cosby, OJ Simpson, Keith Renia, the Nexium cult leader.

Casey Anthony, Donald Trump, Casey, though, I don't know.

I really like like people that you would never think like. Sam Elliott would be a huge get for me, you know what I mean?

Like, you know, I don't know. That's a great one, Glenn.

Glenn Close would be amazing. Like fish out of water. You wouldn't like the person you least expect, but is like kind of like very high status. That's like my ideal guest that Glenn Close. Come on down. Glenn Close. Come on down.

What can we do to get you to host the Golden Globes and anything I need?

You got my vote. I don't know who you got to convince. I don't know who the Hollywood Foreign Press is. I never understand who any of these people are. I don't know who the academy is that they're like, are they do they wear cloaks and they meet at like Masonic temples?

It's like the eyes wide shut. It's like eyes wide shut. That's what. The academy is solidly so I don't know who you got it. I try to take Ellen's job. I know she's your neighbor. She lives in Santa Barbara, I think. Or somewhere. Yeah, she's she's up here.

She was that petition, I think. I think you were close. I was close. So you talked. Maybe you can talk, Ellen, into letting me substitute substitute teach the class.

I think I know she has, like Sean Hayes, come in every once in a while. Why not you? Yeah, I think I would watch a great. As would I. OK, I have my homework for today. I know I'm calling when I get off of here. I'm calling Ellen DeGeneres. Yes, thank you. I'm going to start lobbying for the octopus to be on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. I think I think this is good.

I think there's going to be a huge spike now from my podcast listeners who like this octopus thing, this obscure octopus reference and and wonder chosen are all going to have listen, I don't recommend shit on the show unless I'm really, really into it.

So that's that's the good part. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. And we appreciate you, my boys are I've gotten such brownie points from my boys that I literally texted them and said, I'm interviewing Eric Andre tomorrow in all caps.

You are fucking kidding.

Exclamation mark and nice. I am happy that I have such a such power over the youth.

I should really start a cult. I'm really just I'm really squandering this opportunity or at least get a Doritos ad out of it. Yes, something something Doritos ad told Ellen Show.

I mean, you know, Casey Anthony interview maybe and Glenn Close on the couch at the same time. I like it. Just spit balling.

It's all good. You've given me a lot to think about. You've given me a lot to do. I got to deal with the Golden Globe people today.

I remember got quit. Quit if you can remember and quit. Quit if you I'm getting a T-shirt made of it.

I'm an open and acting studio and then there people are going to pay and come and I'm just going to go quit if you can make drop leave.

Yeah. Spark spark by the way, that's more than you would learn in six fucking months of an acting school.

And there's been a lot to unpack here. I knew it.

I knew it would be great and it was great. And you were great.

Thank you, man. This is fantastic. And I'll see you on season five at some point. Let's figure this out. I'll come see.

I was good. All right, brother. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was awesome. Thanks, Eric. OK, bye. Love by load sons. Bye bye. You bet.

I don't know about you, but I had so much fun just now and I have a quote I love when I hear good quotes, I can't tell you. It just it makes my day quit if you can. Is is is transcendent for me, truly, but does it surprise me that I would get that from Eric Andre, who is, you know, one of the smartest, funniest people in comedy out there, period? And I'm thrilled that he was on the show and I'm more happy that I impressed my boys.

Again, I'm cool for a minute. I'm cool for the entire. Fifteen steps. Of walking out of this room into the other part of our house where I'm just stupid out of it, dad again, but for this moment I'm cool again. Thank you, Eric. Andre. You have been listening to literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Devon Tory Bryant, executive produced by Rob Lowe for low profile Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher.

The supervising producer is Aaron Blair's talent producer, Jennifer. Please write and review the show on Apple podcast and remember to subscribe on Apple podcast, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast. This has been 18 cocoa production in association with Sketcher.