January 2, 2023 • 49 mins
Today is a deep dive episode where we interview the amazing, Owen Burke! Owen's career in comedy has spanned 4 decades. He’s worked as a producer for Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company Gary Sanchez, he was an Executive Producer for Comedy Central's Drunk History, he’s worked on the Netflix show Murderville starring Will Arnett, he was an Executive Producer on the Chris Gethard Show for TruTv, he was Editor and Chief for Funny or Die, among so much more. He is also a legendary improviser and was artistic director of UCB Theatre in NYC. We’ll be talking to Owen about his journey in life and comedy. You don't wanna miss this one!
Follow Owen Burke @owenburke on IG and Twitter
Check out our comedy videos @markkendallcomedy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous News is a production of I Heart Radio and
Cool Cool Cool Audio. Yeah yeah, we're amazing and crazy
topics to dig in to, joos you would now tune
and too ridiculous news. We get us. Their views are
working the rules of broadcasting and all books a while.
The course that she was lapping brand up beat journalism,
(00:22):
the strange and the usual stories, and well we gave
them win. It's all about ridiculous news. Everywhere we told
about ridiculous News over there. Hey, everyone, welcome to Ridiculous News.
This is not your average news show. We cover stuff
you didn't realize was news from the wild and funny,
to the deep and hidden to the absolutely ridiculous. I'm
Bill Whirling, Atlanta based filmmaker. I'm a comedian and of
(00:42):
course a huge fan of sketch comedy. Funny or Die
is a place that I'm sure you'll remember that I
have frequented often and still one of my favorite catches
the Huey Lewis and Weird our American Psycho sketch. It's
a huge faith absolutely so many classic sketches. Um. I'm
Mark Kendall y'allman, Atlanta based comedy in and I remember
around the time of my college sketch group first started
(01:04):
uploading content to Funny or Diet. I remember it just
felt so cool and exciting that we had, you know,
content up on the same site as like Will Ferrell
and all these other comedy heroes of ours. Uh. So, yeah,
today is a deep dive episode and it is featuring
the amazing Owen Burke. Owen uh is just an incredible comedian.
(01:25):
He's had a career in comedy that goes back to
the nineties and spanned four decades. He's worked as a
producer for Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company, Gary Sanchez.
He's been an executive producer on Drunk History. He's worked
on the Netflix show murder Ville starring Will Arnett. He
was an executive producer on The Chris Geth Show for
True TV. He was an editor in chief of Funny
or Die, which we were mentioning just earlier. Uh. And
(01:47):
this person is a legendary improviser who plays with a
Dinosaur in l A, which is an improv group in
l A. And he was also artistic director of the
UCB Theater in New York City. So we are so
excited to talk to on a about his journey in
life and in comedy and welcome. Thank you so much,
thank you. Would you mind giving that intro to my mother?
(02:10):
It feels better about where my life is headed. Absolutely
texture rightly show. Yeah. So something we do for with
all our guests, Oh and is we give them their flowers.
That's top And this is just us giving you some
quick compliments. You're not allowed to give anything back. Um,
that's one of the rules. And I'll go first and say, oh,
(02:31):
and you know, we've had some conversations. You've been so
encouraging and supportive of our artwork, and that's so awesome
coming from like a hero someone was so much amazing
experience with comedy. Um, you're just your vibe in general.
You're a kind, generous, supportive person. And every time we've
gotten the opportunity to chance to talk with you, I
(02:54):
feel like I've had a journaline shot to the heart
of encouragement and knowing we can do it. So thank
you so much for that. Yeah, I just want to
echo what Bill said. Oh, and we've met for the
first time. Years ago. You came to Atlanta with Drunk
History and you were recording. Uh, you know a group
of people, and I remember all these years ago just
how genuine you and the whole Drunk History team were.
(03:17):
You're you're you know, you are just good people, you know,
and that really uh stuck with me. And so like
when I would hear about your work elsewhere and hear
about you from elsewhere, that was always just so consistent,
your openness and your kindness. And it's been great to
get to continue to know you. So thank you, so much,
Thank you so much. You know, in Hollywood you get
(03:38):
paid in kindness, so it's really worked out for me awesome. So, uh,
they love kind people in this town. Well, you know,
so this is a news program, and so we wanted
to make sure that while we wanted to focus on
on you, we also wanted to incorporate a news story somehow.
So we were going through your Twitter and we saw
(04:00):
an article that you shared that was super interesting and
it also related to climate change, which is something that
you also post about a good amount, and so we
wanted to start with. This story is from Boing boing
dot net. This is an article by Elias the Lauro
and the title is water futures are going to be ugly? Um,
and so Uh. The article says it's going to be ugly,
(04:21):
and that's quote from Mark Squillan's water law professor at
the University of Colorado. The bottom line is there just
isn't going to be enough water available. They continue to say. Uh.
The recent Denver Post article examines how conditions for water
accessibility are worsening at a faster pace than anticipated. Drought,
over consumption and the disproportionate influence of big agriculture and
(04:44):
state legislatures contribute to life threatening water sword shortages in
the southwest seven States and the river basin. As this
article explains, uh, the third year of El Nino conditions
means probable less snow cap, which means less wall water,
and soon it may be that the damn at like
Mead is no longer producing electricity. So crazy, I think,
(05:09):
you know, why did I share that it's such a
buzz kill? Well, I think it's such a good thing
to to highlight and and something that people, Uh, obviously
we need to consider it more. You know, we're over
here in the southeast and it's so interesting me that
that part of the country is one of the parts
of the country that's growing the fastest. The Southwest. You know,
so many people are moving there and yet there's this
(05:34):
huge issue with the water shortage, and like Mead, I mean,
does do you feel it? Do you feel the growth happening?
And how does that affect you know, folks they're concerned
about the water. Well, I'm constantly concerned about the water.
Any waterways drives me crazy. You know when people run
the water while brushing their teeth or you know, washing
(05:56):
their hands or something, anything like that makes me really
I just think about water all the time. I think
about just natural resources all the time because they're limited
and we live in a on a finite globe and
we act like things will always just keep coming and
keep there will always be more, and there's a point
(06:16):
where there won't be anymore because there's no one left
because we don't have you know, water trucks coming from
somewhere outside the Solar system driving them to our planet
bag more water on the water burg on the water alien,
more water than any water alien your holiday tap. But
(06:37):
it is it's really like scary, Like to me, what
is scary about it is that so much is preventable
and a lot of what the shortage has to do
with is that it's it's all about money. It's like
people buying huge corporations I shouldn't say people, but huge
corporations buying water rights and not sharing the water. And
(07:01):
so water from Arizona is going to the Middle East,
and it's like, well, they bought that water, so I
guess it's there's but whoever has the money and the
power is going to go to other areas where their
resources are and they're going to just grab the resources.
And I look at this in am you know, in
(07:23):
a gradiated way. I don't think that. I don't know
what's going to happen. I have no idea. I'm not
an economist, I'm not geologist, I'm not environmentalist, I'm nothing.
I'm just someone who reads the news is freaks out.
It like, well, when does this get bad for me
and my kids? I have kids, and I'm like, well,
(07:44):
the thing that gets me is that it's going to
be over time and we're not going to notice. And
I think there's something like uh, like I think I
wrote in that tweet, like if you think gas got
expensive when it was scarce, what do you think water
is going to be? Get ready to be thirsty, get
ready to not be able to afford water, taking a
(08:05):
shower like something that we take for granted every day,
washing dishes, taking a shower, flushing a toilet, these things
that are just built into our life. I'm not saying
it's gonna happen a mole, but I am saying that
it's gonna happen eventually. Where you don't take a shower
every day, you don't you can't use the same amount
of water. When will that be? Maybe never? And I
(08:28):
worry that there's not a sense of growth, a sense
of how do we build for a future. We're sort
of trying to protect ourselves from the future now and
how or we're not thinking about the future at all,
Like I think we're just using water and using resources
like it's fine, who cares, you know, right, Yeah, I
think there's not a lot of thought put into it.
(08:50):
And you know that the things that you mentioned, like
you know, not running the water. There's small things that
we can do as individuals where it's not running the
water when you're brushing your tea or shaving or taking
shorter showers, or you know, even thinking about plastic wakes
with plastic water bottles. Probably not the best thing in general,
use a refilmal water bottles. There's plastic water bottles. I'm like, why,
(09:12):
and to me it is And we just as human beings,
don't think about the future because it's not in front
of us, and a lot of people just going by
day to day, including myself, like, oh, where's the next
job coming from? What is is my kid doing okay
in school? All these things that we're facing all the time,
But you're not really thinking about something that's not affecting
you yet. There's nothing yet. And I think as long
(09:36):
as people who are making money in the fossil fuels
industry and that they are paying politicians who become not
just politicians but people who govern and shape our society,
and that you can muddy the waters about what's happening.
I think it's a problem and I think people are
not going to really deal with it until it's too late,
(09:58):
until it's like, well, this is the new normal. Like
whenever I see I'm very fair skinned, I'm Irish Canadian,
so I'm like barely translucent. I'm like just like burn
all the time. I'm just constantly sunburned. Like my daughter
was like, I've never seen you without a red face.
I'm like, I know, like all the time, and I
(10:18):
put on sunscreen and all stuff, and I I was
getting this this catalog for a while because about one
piece of sun protective stuff from like I'm not even
I don't know, like Coolie Bar was the name of it.
And it's all like SPF clothing and it's like big
wide brimmed hats and long sleeve cool shirts like cool
as and temperature SPF shirts and I wear shirts like that,
(10:42):
and I'm like, but they show in the catalog everyone
is like so relaxed, like in this hell heat scale golf,
wearing these crazy protective clothes and I completely covered with
gloves and long sleep shirts and they're all like, hey Bill,
how was the fourth quarter numbers? I don't all like
a business while I'm budding, you know that. No, we're
(11:03):
gonna at that point, we're gonna be living in a
world that's really bad and really horrible, and like I
don't know when there's no rain or there's like we
had two days of rain last week and it's like, oh,
thank god, that doesn't do anything because it's not the
snow cap that's going to provide so much water and
it's like the rivers are getting you know, just dry,
(11:25):
and it's just scary and like there's so much foggy
information and people don't really want to address it because
there's no money in it. There's no money in addressing
climate change right now unless you can really address it,
and even that is money. It's like there's I don't
even know what to do to say, hey, people, wake up,
(11:46):
let's fix this before it's worse. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna
take a quick break to hear words from our sponsors. Yeah,
would amazing and crazy Comics would dance of ridiculous news. Awesome.
(12:07):
So we're back with our amazing guests, Owen Burke and
so all. We wanted to talk to you about your
comedy career as well. And you know, we have mentioned
Funny or Die earlier where you were editor in chief,
and you know, for so long Funny or Die was
just this hub of internet comedy and you know it
in my world, it really likes set trends as well
(12:27):
as like jump started so many careers of people that
I'm still a fan of today. And so I just
kind of wanted to start by asking you what was
it like, you know, steering that ship. Being at the
head of that, well, I'll speak about it this way.
I'll say that year as editor in chief and Funnier
did I was a fantastic year. And I was working
at Gary Sanchez, which is willing at Will Farren out
(12:48):
on the kids production company, and they just wanted an
extra eye on what we were making during this time
during everything we were talking by the climate change or
being focused on the news, especially during election year. That's
why I was brought in there, and it was amazing.
It was really fun, but it was also a different
(13:10):
time for the company, a different time for digital media
in general. I'll say my whole time, I've always worked
a Funnier and Die. I worked as was hired by
Gary Sanchez. But McKay was like, why don't you always
have these ideas and you're always looking out for people
or have notes on edits. Why don't you just work
there too and be a consultant. So I was a consultant.
It is vague, which really meant I just stuck my
(13:33):
nose in all the time and gave thoughts and suggested
people to be hired or whatever. And I just was
sort of this other voice of a creative eye, what
can we do? But I didn't make any financial decisions
or anything. I just was like, have you seen this person?
Have you seen this video? I think if you cut
this out you'll have a faster video, or add this
joke and a d R or whatever. So all of
(13:55):
that time was truly amazing. From two thousand seven to
who up until I was editor in chief was just
really fun because there was a point in the heyday
of digital comedy where actually got paid by advertisers and
we could advertise on our site before Facebook and social
(14:17):
media sort of drew the eyeballs away from websites and
more onto a platform whatever. That we really could make
whatever we wanted, and it was so fun and it
was really fun. We had such amazing people and it
was such a fun. It was really fun to be
a part of finding great people. It's really fun to
(14:37):
be a part of giving great people ideas and seeing
what they do with It was really fun to just
be in the mix of creative energy, like not even
to be just to walk in and walk down the
hall and see Rose McGowan dresses Beddy Boop in a
hospital room that used to be an editor's office. You
know what, I mean, but for those four hours it
(14:58):
was a hospital room and there was just an energy
to another excitement to it all the time. There was
just people are always creating. People are always running around
filming something, making something. I have an idea the night before,
write it, come into work, film it that day, it's
up that night. Like that's the kind of stuff which
is really exciting to me. That's the kind of stuff
(15:20):
where you really talented people who say I'm doing this.
There are the things that we had to do to
pay the bills, like partnered videos with like corporations or
whatever that were like, hey, we have this celebrity drinking
this soda or whatever and it seems like a video
but it's not. And there was sort of that. But
the payoff for the creators there was like, yeah, you
(15:40):
have to do some of that, but also sales equipment.
Go for it, you know what, go for it. And
the people who did go for it, the people who
did want to have fun in that place, they did
really well there, and not because they were company people.
It's actually the opposite. It's because they were like, I'm
going to make what I want. Like I look at
(16:02):
someone like Eric Cappelle, who we hired early on one
of our first early hires. I knew him from UCB
and he always blew me away at UCB because he
would when I was artistic director of UCB, you would say, oh,
I want to do a sketch show, like everybody did.
But he's like, I want to time the sketch show
too painful. It's dark side of the moon, just like
(16:23):
And I'm like, well, that's I love that because you
want to make something. You're not just making sketches, but
you will have an idea. You want to make something new,
and I think that's incredible and I support that kind
of thinking, which is ambitious. Swinging for the fences. Does
the sketch show work? I don't know, not a hundred percent,
(16:43):
but who cares. It's so fun to watch that. You're
just sort of like, this is so fun and it's
funny and it's great, and it's done in a basement
underneath a Gristindi's and it's more like, am I going
to get famous off that sketch or whatever? No, but
you're building what your point of view is. The people
who took advantage of UCB the same people to take
(17:06):
advantage of Funnier Die. The same kind of people who
are like, Oh, this place is a service that I
can use to get better at who I am, to
get closer to who I am? What's my voice? I
could take chances and find my voice now. Ericappelle made
that movie with Weird. Al Yankovic called Weird so funny,
so great, so electric, and I'm so e psite for
(17:29):
him because I see someone who made that video and
it was just something he wanted to do. And God
bless Mike Farah, who really is the engine of that place.
I don't take any credit even when I was editor
in chief that I'm the engine of that place. Mike
Farah made Funnier Die what it is, and he really did.
(17:51):
He's incredible. He's just like he is passion and his
skills with creative people were incredible. And when he supported something,
he went all the way. And so he's really the
engine of that place. Like there was no note with him.
It was like, let's see what we can do, Let's
see who I can call, Let's see if we're gonna
(18:11):
make it happen. And so it's really that was the
fun of that place. Is people making a Steve Jobs
movie to beat the two other Steve Jobs movies that
like to stay Jobs movies coming out. So Ryan Perez
is just this really funny guy was like, I'm gonna
make a Steve Jobs movie first. That to me is
(18:34):
funny because there's an idea why are you making this?
And it's the same as anything I do, developing TV shows,
developing movies, writing movies, ranging shows, writing on shows, whatever
I'm doing. It's the same as funnier guys like why
are you making this? What's this video? Okay, why are
you making Why are you making this TV show? Why?
What is the story you want to tell? Why are
(18:56):
you doing it? The thing that really resonates is like
if someone knows why they're making something, what they want
to do at the end of it, it just it
just takes it to another level where people watch it
and even if they don't fully thinking about why this
is being made, in every scene, in the jokes and everything,
the dialogue why they're making something will come through. It'll
(19:19):
just sort of be a part of the essence of
the piece because there's an idea behind it that's driving
it the whole time, This invisible hand that's guiding the piece.
The whole time. And that's something what a Pell, Like
I said before about a Pell wanting to match it
with Dark Side of the Moon, there's something he wanted
to do, something he was trying to do for your working,
for your writing is do you find that there's a
(19:41):
y that consistently comes up when you're writing, when you're
making your projects, Like what that y is for you? Well,
it depends on the project. So you know, at Sanchez,
we always wanted to make something that spoke to people.
And sometimes like when Will and Adam and I think
HINCHI wrote it the Campaign movie with Zach and Will
(20:06):
taal Fanakis, and that's really about campaign finance. That movie
is silly and funny and whatever, but it's really a
movie about campaign finance. Anchorman and Inncormand two is really
about the death of news. Anchorman two more than anchormand
it's really about the prophetization of news. Um my father
worked in news and and I remember my my father
(20:30):
passed away and at his funeral, Ted Compell said to me,
He's like, hey, an Anchorman two, you took you stole
One of my lines that I've been saying around the
country is news today tells people what they want to hear,
not what they need to hear. And I think there
are things that Adam and Will did so well, which
was putting something underneath that was like, this is really
(20:52):
what this movie is about, but all of this on
top of it is so you enjoy it, and and
not to lead with theme, but to have that sort
of in the background is always very helpful. So sometimes
I will write something about the nihilistic nature of of
social media trying to just get clicks, the nihilism of
(21:13):
if you're a yoga enthusiast, and then how do you
get to be someone who has shown strongly anti vacts,
anti whatever is because you're learning about homeopathic medicine, which
leads to alternative medicine, which leads to maybe vaccines aren't this,
and maybe you do this, and then all of a
sudden you get into this other world. I'm not saying
any of that's good and that's bad. In this business,
(21:35):
sometimes getting other meetings and getting other opportunities is why
you write something. Another thing was about corporations destroying the
dairy industry, just the consolidation of that. And other times
I write about something that I live with all the time.
Is I am. I'm constantly lived with I was raised Catholic,
and I live with a Catholic guilt all the time.
(21:56):
I constantly think I'm in trouble. I constantly think that
done something wrong to somebody at all times. And this
is how I live my life that I can't escape.
And and so I write really dark characters that sort
of embrace their sins and don't learn from their sins
and move forward. So those are like the two themes
that sort of it just depends on the project, you know. Yeah, yeah,
(22:20):
we will be right back with more ridiculous news after
this short break. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, don't to confuse
you would now do ridiculous news. Awesome, So we're back
with our amazing guest, Owen Burke, and and it's been
(22:40):
great getting to talk to you about you know, not
only climate change, but um, you know, your work, and
I think just kind of how the things that you
care about influence your writing. And another huge aspect of
who you are as an artist and as a creator
is your career in improv. And you are part of
the legendary improv group was actor Montalban, which now kind
(23:01):
of performs as Dinosaur at Largo in l A. And
I have never seen respect to perform, But I listened
to a lot of improv podcasts throughout the years, and
that is a team that comes up all the time
and so like, and especially back before you know, like
a lot of improv sets would be on YouTube, would
be online. Just the fact that you would hear about
(23:21):
this improv group in New York, you know what I mean?
I think just speaks to the real impact that y'all
had on the form. And so I guess the question
that I have for you, or a question I have
for you, is, you know, you've improvised for a long
time while also you know, having the success in television,
and you know, what is it about improv that where
(23:43):
you stick with it? You know, like you've you've gone
onto to TV, but yet you also continue to do
improv And I'd love to know why that is for you? Well, improv.
I'll say this improv was when I first saw improv,
I didn't know what I was doing with my life,
and I wanted to be creative and I tried to
stand up, but I wasn't really into the vibe there
(24:04):
and and I was a p A and uh and
I was like really trying to figure out my life.
And when I saw my downstairs neighbors took me to
my first improv show, long form improv show, I just
saw the form. I just saw what they were doing,
and I was like, this is what I want to
do for the rest of my life. It was an
epiphany moment more than oh, this will help me get
on certain alive, or this will help me get a
(24:25):
job at w m E or whatever the path maybe. Um,
I didn't know what it was. I just knew this
was the past. I didn't know where it would take me,
but I knew that the art form spoke to me.
And so those of us that started at UCB early on,
before there was even a theater. Uh, we all did
it because we love the form. We wanted to do
(24:47):
this form. It wasn't like this will get us something.
There was no idea of this will get us. There
was nothing to get There was nothing. There was no
history of this. If you do this, you get this.
There was no theater, there was no institution in which
to grow. We built that theater years later. So that
was something where we just love the form. And so
(25:08):
the people with whom I perform a dinosaur right now.
The same people allowed from respect of and a lot
since my first improv class. Paul Sheer, I met him
in my first improv class. He's god father to my daughter,
you know what I mean, Like, this is someone I've
known for a long time and this is something we
love to do. You know, when you CEB Theater closed,
(25:31):
like it was very painful to us. We performed every
week and that's a that's a luxury, and that was
something amazing and it was really painful when it went away.
And I remember I was working on Drunk History and
we were filming and you know when you're filming re enactments,
you're filming long days or whatever, doing a story a day,
(25:53):
and it's so fun. That's a show too. That just
so fun to make because such talented people in the
same way funnier and I was. It's such talented people
doing extraordinary things with limited resources, limited time, limited light,
limited money, and just delivering in an art form that's
(26:15):
like just elevated what they were doing. Jeremy Connor, Derek Waters,
the dps that we had, the gaffers, we had, the
crew was incredible, or a d Jason Brown who was
a production manager on the Weird Movie, just people who
made stuff happen that you're like, Wow, we did that,
it's amazing. I remember leaving, like we were throwing in
some ranch somewhere and I was leaving and I was like, oh, man,
(26:37):
I think I could make my show at an ID
thirty show. And I'm like, I think I can make it.
And Derek was like, I can't believe You're gonna go
do an improv show right now. I was like, well,
one day I'm not going to be able to do
an improv show, so I'm gonna do it as much
as I can until I can. And it really is
something that is so fun to do because once you
(26:59):
there's just like everything you learn about improv, then you
get you do and probably you're sort of bad. I
was sort of bad at it, but I was like,
I'm gonna just succumb to the grace of this and
try to get better. I got less bad, less bad,
less bad, less bad, started to get better, better, better, better,
and once you get through that, you start having real
fun with it. It's really fun and it's meditative because
(27:22):
for an hour you're on stage and you're not thinking,
you're not worried. You're not. You're in the moment completely.
You're just in this moment and you're having fun. And
it's I get to do it with people with whom
I've performed for years and years and years, so we
all know each other. It doesn't mean we plan anything.
It just means if I'm doing a scene with Riggle,
(27:43):
I know that he's going to be my dad and
I'm the son who wants to take poetry class and
he's gonna get furious, you know, because I know because
I want him to be able to yell at me.
I want Riggle to yell. So how do I get
Reriggle to yell at me? You know? And so it's
like you started thinking about, like how do I make
the most out of other people? And there's an idea
with the improv which just sort of fits my personality
(28:08):
and the things I do is the reason why I'm
not so you know. I've even been doing open mines
to stand up recently, just for stage time, just have fun,
and I'm not planning touring or being on Kimmel or
anything like that. I just do it to like do it.
But like I know, improv is my first love, because
it's who I am. It's about serving other people. So
(28:28):
why I think I was artistic director, it's why I
was worked the way I worked at Funnier and Die.
Everything I'm talking about, the way talk about you guys,
it's like it's the other person. It's and maybe it's
being the youngest of four boys, you know, or something
where it's just sort of give more than you get
or something. And I'm a big believer and you get
(28:49):
more from giving than taking. And with improv, that's what
we do. And it's not some I'm not some you know,
ethical standard bearer. I'm better than anybody else. But it's
just sort of my nature not to be the center
of attention or whatever, and but to actually be a
part of a bigger machine, a bigger collaborative effort, which
(29:11):
is why I love production. I love plays like Drunk
History or making a TV shows because you're a part.
Everyone's a part of it together, and there are no
every Everyone is just as important. You know, the p
A is not locking up the street corner and someone
walks through the shot and while you're fighting the light,
that's just as important as the camera operator not turning
(29:32):
on the camera, or the director not paying attention to
what is happening, or the actor for getting on. It's all.
Everyone has their part and it's really and everyone on
set is talented and you have to respect that talent.
And it's with improv it's this shared moment and you're
also sharing with the audience. It's addictive because everyone's in
(29:52):
on this joke that if you went and told it afterwards,
no one would get it. Oh wait, so he had
hand for ends Hammans. Yeah that doesn't make sense, no,
but because he was a surgeon. He was a surgeon
with a you don't get it, and it's just like
it's hard, but the audience, like if you can make
two D people, everyone sees the same thing at the
(30:15):
same time. It's something magical about that that that everyone
is sharing a group a mind and it's not just
the people on stage, but it's the whole audience sees
something that was not there before and was not planned
there before. It all it's like magic. And there's there's
a reason why we get repeat you know people coming
(30:38):
to our shows is because it's always different because we're
all just making it up and there's something so fun
about that. So that's why I love him, pro I
love It's just fun and it's it's it's about sharing,
and you know, it's just it's it's like anything. It's
just like really fun to do. And I just really
(30:59):
appreciate that. I feel very lucky that I found it
when I did, and I always I feel very blessed.
I had these downstairs neighbors who thought it was funny
enough to take me to that show, and uh, and
I just feel very lucky. And so but then it
all comes around because my downstairs neighbor took me to
that show is Will Arnett, who I just wrote for,
(31:20):
you know what I mean. So it's like it's all
it's all weird, you know, it's everything is connected, you know,
the same way meeting Mike Farrell through Jerry O'Connell because
I was a p a on Joe's apartment. In everything
in this business is connected. Everything is. It's a small community,
even though it's huge and vast, and you can feel
(31:40):
incredibly lonely in this world. Everyone knows each other or
you're just one degree of separation away from who I
was and who I knew and this and that it's incredible.
It's incredible, you know, yeah, well, you know, speaking of
all that, and you know improv and fort marking our
huge fans of improv and and that's where my comedy
(32:02):
career got started to because my uh one of my
roommates girlfriends was a musical improviser and said, hey, should
come check out a show at this theater Dad's garage
and it changed my life. And uh, that's there's that
synchronicity in those moments. But random question that we have
for you that Mark came up with the Mark I love.
This question is is do you have an opinion about
(32:24):
improv that you think most people might disagree with? Mm hmm.
I don't know if I do and most people disagree,
I don't think so because of what I was, I
don't know, Like I was sort of taught, Like my
first improv workshop was with Amy Poehler and I always
remember that, you know. I remember like when after I
(32:48):
saw that ask at show, I went up to her
and I was saying, how do I get involved? She
was like, take classes. That's what I did. I'm teaching
when this Saturday come And I remember when she's like,
that's what I did. But there's this idea we're all
doing the same thing, and this is how we all start.
And it took away the sort of the mystery of
like what is this or whatever. And then when I
took that workshop with her, the thing that I remember
(33:09):
get choked up, but like the thing that I remember
moston than anything was she taught respect that everyone in
this room is trying to do it. It's trying to
get less bad, it's trying to explore this art form.
So let's be respectful of one another. Let's keep building
together and allowing people to be vulnerable and allowing them
(33:31):
for that time, and we respect people's vulnerability. And I
took that was like I made because it was my
first workshop, and you know, such a beautiful part of
improv is really respecting someone else's idea, dropping your own
idea if it changes or whatever. It's really about respecting
the intelligence of the of the audience, respecting the intelligence
of your fellow players. And really, I don't know, that
(33:54):
was like a big takeaway from me and something I
thought about when I taught. It's something I thought about
when I gave notes as artistic director on someone's show,
or how to cancel someone show or pass on a
show or do something, or when I did development with
Will and Adam. It's like there's this idea of when
someone's pitching you something, they're vulnerable and they're saying, I
(34:15):
don't know this is a guy. I think this is good.
I wrote this alone in my house. I hope you
think it's good too, remembering that what they're doing is vulnerable.
And when I tell this doing a workshop for some
students now, um in this m Community Center down the
street from me that that Paul, my friend Paul and
(34:38):
June got involved in and just think it's such a
special place. And m I tell those students is you know,
they're teenagers, so they don't want to like really be vulnerable.
They don't want to take chances. And I tell them
being in this room doing improv, going to this room
to say I want to sit in and watch this,
(34:58):
going to an improv class, going on stage to do
stand up, painting a painting, writing a poem and reading
it at a coffee shop open like whatever, if does
even exists, I don't know those are that's all positive.
And so if you get a step on stage, or
you going to an improv class, you go to a
rehearsal or you go to an open mic. It's all positive. Now.
(35:20):
How positive it is is how well you do or
how maybe fell back a little or you make a
mistake or whatever. And as long as you're being respectful
of other people and you're not being hurtful to other people,
it's all positive. And if you can think of it
that way, where you are, it's always positive because you're
(35:40):
trying something and you're gonna get less bad and then
better at it. And if you just always look at
it like a line that keeps moving up and up
and up and up, it's positive. And to remember that
it's positive and not to and if someone else is
doing it and you're like, oh that person, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't know if that person is so great. Hey,
(36:00):
maybe you're not so great, but maybe you are great,
and maybe that person is trying, and maybe that person
is working through stuff that you don't know about, and
maybe you should just be respectful of their space as
they're trying it to the same way you would want
someone to be respectful of your space. Making mistakes, you know,
everyone making missteps, saying something that's off color and learning
from it, you know, being like oh gosh, I guess
(36:23):
that's not an idea that I want to say over
again or whatever, like oh wow, and oh I just
stepped over this person or this person stepped over me.
Learning from these always going towards a feeling of respect,
not to just belittle that word respect, but it really
is about giving that respecting that person's bubble of creativity
(36:45):
and allowing them to be that the same way you're
allowing yourself, having a self respect for yourself, you know.
And that's sort of I don't know of other people
think I think they do, and I think that there's
a general like everyone that I perform with, and I
think it's sort of a blessing of comeing up through
an improv is that it's really hard to be a
jerk and be an improviser. It's really hard to be
selfish should be an improviser, because those people sort of
(37:08):
fall away after level three, level four of the classes
or first year into shows or whatever, because no one
wants to perform with them because like they ruin every scene,
you know, they do this and they do that, and
it's not like a canceling of that person. It's sort
of like that person has to find their own form
because this is a form of giving. And sometimes I
(37:29):
would tell my students when I was teaching classes that
used to be like, maybe should do short form, or
maybe you should be a stand up because you keep
wanting to make it about yourself and not about the scene.
And I'm not saying that you're a bad person. I'm
just saying there are different art forms for a reason.
There's the reason why I don't connect to stand up
the same way I connect to improv. It's the way
I'm built. So maybe people who want to do improv
(37:50):
because it's the popular thing to do, maybe you should
try stand up because maybe they'll be happy they did.
You know, if I stuck with stand up, I don't
know what kind of person I would be. I don't
know if I would be a happy person, or if
I would be successful at it at all, or if
I would ever found my groove, because I just don't
know if that's who I am. And I think to
take a mic and be like what I'm saying is
(38:11):
the truth and you all have to get on board.
I just don't know if i'd that person, even though
I feel like I'm talking a lot now, But like
with improv. I just feel like that was something for
me and for other people maybe stand up is or
short form improv is, or just writing sketches or being
characters that are like I have lips for a head
and like great. I always think about this when I
(38:34):
was working on Joe's Apartment and I was in the
MTV offices all the time, and there was a guy
named Abby to Cooley who is a early executive at MTV,
and I remember he had to sell his animation cell
at Beavis and butt Head in his office. It was framed,
it was really signed by Mike Judge, and I remember
it was I don't even know which one Beavis had
(38:56):
like that had he was the Great Cornholio and he
had to shirt over his head and he's like, I
am the Great corn Holio and there was and my
judge drew a picture of Abby to Coolie just saying great,
and I think, or that's great, and I think that
that to me is what I responded to that when
I saw that, and I was like, that to me
(39:17):
is a great executive. That to me, I was twenty
two years old. I'm like, that's the kind of person
I see myself as as someone's like, that's great. Be
the great Cornelia, because you know what, go for it,
be that thing. Do it because that's what you are.
Maybe not be who I am. And then how we
play together is its own thing, or maybe we're compatible,
(39:38):
maybe we're not just like dating or whatever it is.
It's like there's just different things, but just celebrating someone
trying stuff. Like when Sarah Squirm got on Starting Alive.
I was so happy for her because I let's see
her at UCB just being outlandish and insane and doing
stuff and those videos that you do at YouTube. I'm like,
(39:59):
who's a person? And I don't like a lot of
the stuff that's because it's squishy and gooey and weird
and it's not who I am. But it makes me
laugh because she's so committed to it and she's she
doesn't give an f what anyone else thinks, and she
just commissed to who she is. And I'm like, yeah,
do it up. That's it. And I was like, Wow,
(40:21):
she got on that show. That's huge, and I think
it's huge for the show, and I think it's huge
for her, and I just root for so hard because
she's so committed to who she is. It's like she's
the great corner Hoolia. That's great, do it up? You know, Well,
we got one final thing we want to do with you,
and it's a pretty silly game. All right. So you
may be aware that you share the name with the
(40:41):
actor Owen Burke, who has appeared in the movies such
as The Town, The Equalizer, and Coda. So we wanted
to make a game centered around the both of you.
All called who tweeted it owen Burke or owen Burke.
So you only have two possible answers for each question.
We're gonna read a tweet and you can only answer
with owen Burke owen Burke. And also to race, can
(41:02):
I jump in? Can I jump? Everyone's absolutely. I actually
thought of a movie idea that will never made. But
I thought of a movie idea the other day. I
was like about owen Burke because we have such a
rare name and uh, and it's uh. I was like
that I get cast and I managed like, they want
you to be heavy in the new John Wickman, I'm
like me, yeah, it's an offer an author. Maybe they
(41:25):
heard through Jason man Juga said I'm a good actor. Okay,
and then I show up and they're like what, no,
how Bill Murray talks about I thought like the Coen
Brothers were making Garfield or something. Someone just cast me
to be like heavy, like you better pay up John
Wick or whatever. It would be like they're like, oh,
we've made a huge mistake. We've already paid him. I
(41:48):
was like, that would be like, oh my god. And
then the real like he took my that's up to me,
my job. Now he's after me or something because I
do that. Sorry, but it's really fun. I love that
for a movie. I would watch that movie for shared U. So,
but this game, the way to work is, I'll read
a tweet. You gotta tell me if Ohenburg tweeted it
(42:08):
or if Owen Burke tweeted it. And to raise the stakes, Uh,
if you win the game, you get a Ferrari, but
if you lose the game, unfortunately, you get a Ferrari. Alright,
so we'll hop in to round one of Ohenburg or Owenburg.
So this is the first tweet. All right, So psyched
for at Nicole Buyer. Just the funniest who said that
owned Burke Burke me Owenberg exactly exactly right. Exactly. What's
(42:34):
the funniest absolutely yeah. Uh. This is next tweet, Getting
emails from Escape Rooms evokes the same heartache is reading
James Joyce's The Dead. Wow, that could be either of us.
(42:54):
I don't know what did I say that emails from
scaped Room. I'm gonna say that's the other Owenberg though
it feels like something that I might. I don't know.
It's the same from August one. Next. This next tweet
(43:15):
is I love all caps, Love all caps. Hashtag the
Boys so cool, so fun, so gory, Glady's back. I
mean that could be that's me. I mean, I love
the Boys, So I want to say that's me. I
love that show. That is so much. Do you watch
that show? I mean that. I'll just say this quickly.
(43:38):
Season one, fourth episode, the Plane, The plane episode goes
give me spoilers. The Plane episode, it's the same episode
when the Deepest stealing the dolphin that he's in love
from the place. How they alternated from horror to comedy,
back and forth. I think it's one of the most
(44:00):
dynamic episodes of television. I I don't even know another one.
It was so incredible. I love that show. It's really great.
It's the best. Oh my god, this is the last one.
And I will also say this is going to be
the hardest one. Okay, al right, this last one. All right,
Damn Pence, answer the damn question. That's the other own.
(44:21):
Actually that was a trick question, Owen, so sorry tricky
that was from Sinbad. Uh so it's like neither Owen. Congratulations,
you did great, you win a Ferrari. Thank you, thank
you for playing, Owen Burker Owenburg. Yeah, I love this game.
So how can our listeners if they want to follow
(44:42):
you and check out stuff you're doing. What's the best
place for them to follow you? Well, I'm on Twitter
at Owen Burke, and I'm on Instagram at Owenburg, but
I don't really post on Twitter anymore that much, very rarely,
and I very rarely post on Instagram pretty much to
promote my shows. But I'm on the Hit the Hit
in Buys group Dinosaur with Paul Sheer, Rob Hubo, Rob
(45:03):
regal Um, and we have a lot of great guests
all the time. Nicole Bayer played with us the other
knife son born lad is like it's so Carl Tart,
Oh my god, the funniest. But I got to Jackson.
We just have a great group of people that play
with us. Check Carter said Moore's Um, I guess that's
(45:24):
the only way. I don't know. I should I give
my personal phone number. Don't don't give me. We don't
want to get too many calls. Um. But that does
bring us to our final segment here, Mark, Yes, Yes,
So our final segment is called the spring of Inspiring Inspirations.
This is when we read an inspiring quote in the
episode on a positive note and uh oh when this
(45:44):
comes from you, this gave Bill and I so much joy.
We had a great laugh at this. Uh this is
a tweet that you had which said, why why why
you have to keep seeing headlines about the Snyder cut?
Why when will it stop? Laughter out that for a
long time? It's true. During that time with the Seneca,
(46:07):
I'm like, who what is this? Who cares? Like you
watch Justice League or a these movies, You're like, what
this is? I don't want to see this longer? I
don't want to Like why is everyone talking about like
this as this big deal, like that we should all
see this master work that's been hidden, Like I don't know, Like,
(46:29):
come on, everyone just got to relax. It was so
like every time I opened up Twitter or whatever, it's
like the Snider cut isn't coming? Is it not coming?
What is it like? To be honest, I don't even
know if it ever came out. I don't know. And
that's the crazy thing with stuff now on the internet,
not to your stuff, but like I have no idea
what people are talking about most of the time, like
(46:52):
especially with like outrage, like I can't believe he said this.
I can't believe it. I'm like, all right, what did
he say? What did he say? And I can't find
the article about what? Like, I'm like, what did he say?
What is every article is like and we're against him
and we're agains him, like okay, but what did he say?
It's like all of these other places just glambing onto
conflict for hits and it's like, well what what did
(47:14):
what did he actually say? And I'm like I can
never find that piece of information. Ned, Yeah, it's never
like this is the quote, this is the reaction, it's
he was on. This is now we're all mad, Okay,
be mad. I'm not judging that, and now you react
to things. But I am like I would like to know,
and I would help how watching you know, just tell
(47:36):
me what it's like in a news article would be
like the cops arrested this guy and what did he do?
Five other articles? Oh, bob the back? Oh now I
see what it is like? Did know? It would be
like res just tell me that's like that Snyder cut?
Why why why You're scrolling through the article trying to
find it and accidentally click on an ad and then
(47:57):
seventeen other things pop up and then then you're on
another rabbit hole. Um, well, Owen, it means so much
for you to come on the show. It really means
a lot. Every time we get to talk to you.
It's amazing and um, you know, thank you so so
much for being here and for sharing your joy and
your knowledge. And I know that this episode is gonna
bean a lot to our listeners and especially those improvisers
(48:19):
who are always looking for encouragement from a master like you.
It's always great to hear um. So thanks again, and
to our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in.
It means the world to us that you spend your
time with us, So thank you for being here with us.
Thank you, and you can email us at Ridiculous News
that I heart media dot com to stay in touch
and on Facebook and i G follow Ridiculous News, and
(48:41):
you can check out our comedy videos at Mark Kendall Comedy.
By All, Thank you making great stuff. Ridiculous News is
(49:03):
hosted by Mark Kendall and Bill Worley. Executive producers are
Ben Bullen and Noel Brown, Produced and edited by Terry Harrison.
Research provided by Casey Willis and theme music by four
Eyes and Doctor Delight. Four more podcasts from my Heart
Radio visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous News is a production of I Heart Radio and
Cool Cool Cool Audio. Yeah yeah, we're amazing and crazy
topics to dig in to, joos you would now tune
and too ridiculous news. We get us. Their views are
working the rules of broadcasting and all books a while.
The course that she was lapping brand up beat journalism,
(00:22):
the strange and the usual stories, and well we gave
them win. It's all about ridiculous news. Everywhere we told
about ridiculous News over there. Hey, everyone, welcome to Ridiculous News.
This is not your average news show. We cover stuff
you didn't realize was news from the wild and funny,
to the deep and hidden to the absolutely ridiculous. I'm
Bill Whirling, Atlanta based filmmaker. I'm a comedian and of
(00:42):
course a huge fan of sketch comedy. Funny or Die
is a place that I'm sure you'll remember that I
have frequented often and still one of my favorite catches
the Huey Lewis and Weird our American Psycho sketch. It's
a huge faith absolutely so many classic sketches. Um. I'm
Mark Kendall y'allman, Atlanta based comedy in and I remember
around the time of my college sketch group first started
(01:04):
uploading content to Funny or Diet. I remember it just
felt so cool and exciting that we had, you know,
content up on the same site as like Will Ferrell
and all these other comedy heroes of ours. Uh. So, yeah,
today is a deep dive episode and it is featuring
the amazing Owen Burke. Owen uh is just an incredible comedian.
(01:25):
He's had a career in comedy that goes back to
the nineties and spanned four decades. He's worked as a
producer for Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company, Gary Sanchez.
He's been an executive producer on Drunk History. He's worked
on the Netflix show murder Ville starring Will Arnett. He
was an executive producer on The Chris Geth Show for
True TV. He was an editor in chief of Funny
or Die, which we were mentioning just earlier. Uh. And
(01:47):
this person is a legendary improviser who plays with a
Dinosaur in l A, which is an improv group in
l A. And he was also artistic director of the
UCB Theater in New York City. So we are so
excited to talk to on a about his journey in
life and in comedy and welcome. Thank you so much,
thank you. Would you mind giving that intro to my mother?
(02:10):
It feels better about where my life is headed. Absolutely
texture rightly show. Yeah. So something we do for with
all our guests, Oh and is we give them their flowers.
That's top And this is just us giving you some
quick compliments. You're not allowed to give anything back. Um,
that's one of the rules. And I'll go first and say, oh,
(02:31):
and you know, we've had some conversations. You've been so
encouraging and supportive of our artwork, and that's so awesome
coming from like a hero someone was so much amazing
experience with comedy. Um, you're just your vibe in general.
You're a kind, generous, supportive person. And every time we've
gotten the opportunity to chance to talk with you, I
(02:54):
feel like I've had a journaline shot to the heart
of encouragement and knowing we can do it. So thank
you so much for that. Yeah, I just want to
echo what Bill said. Oh, and we've met for the
first time. Years ago. You came to Atlanta with Drunk
History and you were recording. Uh, you know a group
of people, and I remember all these years ago just
how genuine you and the whole Drunk History team were.
(03:17):
You're you're you know, you are just good people, you know,
and that really uh stuck with me. And so like
when I would hear about your work elsewhere and hear
about you from elsewhere, that was always just so consistent,
your openness and your kindness. And it's been great to
get to continue to know you. So thank you, so much,
Thank you so much. You know, in Hollywood you get
(03:38):
paid in kindness, so it's really worked out for me awesome. So, uh,
they love kind people in this town. Well, you know,
so this is a news program, and so we wanted
to make sure that while we wanted to focus on
on you, we also wanted to incorporate a news story somehow.
So we were going through your Twitter and we saw
(04:00):
an article that you shared that was super interesting and
it also related to climate change, which is something that
you also post about a good amount, and so we
wanted to start with. This story is from Boing boing
dot net. This is an article by Elias the Lauro
and the title is water futures are going to be ugly? Um,
and so Uh. The article says it's going to be ugly,
(04:21):
and that's quote from Mark Squillan's water law professor at
the University of Colorado. The bottom line is there just
isn't going to be enough water available. They continue to say. Uh.
The recent Denver Post article examines how conditions for water
accessibility are worsening at a faster pace than anticipated. Drought,
over consumption and the disproportionate influence of big agriculture and
(04:44):
state legislatures contribute to life threatening water sword shortages in
the southwest seven States and the river basin. As this
article explains, uh, the third year of El Nino conditions
means probable less snow cap, which means less wall water,
and soon it may be that the damn at like
Mead is no longer producing electricity. So crazy, I think,
(05:09):
you know, why did I share that it's such a
buzz kill? Well, I think it's such a good thing
to to highlight and and something that people, Uh, obviously
we need to consider it more. You know, we're over
here in the southeast and it's so interesting me that
that part of the country is one of the parts
of the country that's growing the fastest. The Southwest. You know,
so many people are moving there and yet there's this
(05:34):
huge issue with the water shortage, and like Mead, I mean,
does do you feel it? Do you feel the growth happening?
And how does that affect you know, folks they're concerned
about the water. Well, I'm constantly concerned about the water.
Any waterways drives me crazy. You know when people run
the water while brushing their teeth or you know, washing
(05:56):
their hands or something, anything like that makes me really
I just think about water all the time. I think
about just natural resources all the time because they're limited
and we live in a on a finite globe and
we act like things will always just keep coming and
keep there will always be more, and there's a point
(06:16):
where there won't be anymore because there's no one left
because we don't have you know, water trucks coming from
somewhere outside the Solar system driving them to our planet
bag more water on the water burg on the water alien,
more water than any water alien your holiday tap. But
(06:37):
it is it's really like scary, Like to me, what
is scary about it is that so much is preventable
and a lot of what the shortage has to do
with is that it's it's all about money. It's like
people buying huge corporations I shouldn't say people, but huge
corporations buying water rights and not sharing the water. And
(07:01):
so water from Arizona is going to the Middle East,
and it's like, well, they bought that water, so I
guess it's there's but whoever has the money and the
power is going to go to other areas where their
resources are and they're going to just grab the resources.
And I look at this in am you know, in
(07:23):
a gradiated way. I don't think that. I don't know
what's going to happen. I have no idea. I'm not
an economist, I'm not geologist, I'm not environmentalist, I'm nothing.
I'm just someone who reads the news is freaks out.
It like, well, when does this get bad for me
and my kids? I have kids, and I'm like, well,
(07:44):
the thing that gets me is that it's going to
be over time and we're not going to notice. And
I think there's something like uh, like I think I
wrote in that tweet, like if you think gas got
expensive when it was scarce, what do you think water
is going to be? Get ready to be thirsty, get
ready to not be able to afford water, taking a
(08:05):
shower like something that we take for granted every day,
washing dishes, taking a shower, flushing a toilet, these things
that are just built into our life. I'm not saying
it's gonna happen a mole, but I am saying that
it's gonna happen eventually. Where you don't take a shower
every day, you don't you can't use the same amount
of water. When will that be? Maybe never? And I
(08:28):
worry that there's not a sense of growth, a sense
of how do we build for a future. We're sort
of trying to protect ourselves from the future now and
how or we're not thinking about the future at all,
Like I think we're just using water and using resources
like it's fine, who cares, you know, right, Yeah, I
think there's not a lot of thought put into it.
(08:50):
And you know that the things that you mentioned, like
you know, not running the water. There's small things that
we can do as individuals where it's not running the
water when you're brushing your tea or shaving or taking
shorter showers, or you know, even thinking about plastic wakes
with plastic water bottles. Probably not the best thing in general,
use a refilmal water bottles. There's plastic water bottles. I'm like, why,
(09:12):
and to me it is And we just as human beings,
don't think about the future because it's not in front
of us, and a lot of people just going by
day to day, including myself, like, oh, where's the next
job coming from? What is is my kid doing okay
in school? All these things that we're facing all the time,
But you're not really thinking about something that's not affecting
you yet. There's nothing yet. And I think as long
(09:36):
as people who are making money in the fossil fuels
industry and that they are paying politicians who become not
just politicians but people who govern and shape our society,
and that you can muddy the waters about what's happening.
I think it's a problem and I think people are
not going to really deal with it until it's too late,
(09:58):
until it's like, well, this is the new normal. Like
whenever I see I'm very fair skinned, I'm Irish Canadian,
so I'm like barely translucent. I'm like just like burn
all the time. I'm just constantly sunburned. Like my daughter
was like, I've never seen you without a red face.
I'm like, I know, like all the time, and I
(10:18):
put on sunscreen and all stuff, and I I was
getting this this catalog for a while because about one
piece of sun protective stuff from like I'm not even
I don't know, like Coolie Bar was the name of it.
And it's all like SPF clothing and it's like big
wide brimmed hats and long sleeve cool shirts like cool
as and temperature SPF shirts and I wear shirts like that,
(10:42):
and I'm like, but they show in the catalog everyone
is like so relaxed, like in this hell heat scale golf,
wearing these crazy protective clothes and I completely covered with
gloves and long sleep shirts and they're all like, hey Bill,
how was the fourth quarter numbers? I don't all like
a business while I'm budding, you know that. No, we're
(11:03):
gonna at that point, we're gonna be living in a
world that's really bad and really horrible, and like I
don't know when there's no rain or there's like we
had two days of rain last week and it's like, oh,
thank god, that doesn't do anything because it's not the
snow cap that's going to provide so much water and
it's like the rivers are getting you know, just dry,
(11:25):
and it's just scary and like there's so much foggy
information and people don't really want to address it because
there's no money in it. There's no money in addressing
climate change right now unless you can really address it,
and even that is money. It's like there's I don't
even know what to do to say, hey, people, wake up,
(11:46):
let's fix this before it's worse. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna
take a quick break to hear words from our sponsors. Yeah,
would amazing and crazy Comics would dance of ridiculous news. Awesome.
(12:07):
So we're back with our amazing guests, Owen Burke and
so all. We wanted to talk to you about your
comedy career as well. And you know, we have mentioned
Funny or Die earlier where you were editor in chief,
and you know, for so long Funny or Die was
just this hub of internet comedy and you know it
in my world, it really likes set trends as well
(12:27):
as like jump started so many careers of people that
I'm still a fan of today. And so I just
kind of wanted to start by asking you what was
it like, you know, steering that ship. Being at the
head of that, well, I'll speak about it this way.
I'll say that year as editor in chief and Funnier
did I was a fantastic year. And I was working
at Gary Sanchez, which is willing at Will Farren out
(12:48):
on the kids production company, and they just wanted an
extra eye on what we were making during this time
during everything we were talking by the climate change or
being focused on the news, especially during election year. That's
why I was brought in there, and it was amazing.
It was really fun, but it was also a different
(13:10):
time for the company, a different time for digital media
in general. I'll say my whole time, I've always worked
a Funnier and Die. I worked as was hired by
Gary Sanchez. But McKay was like, why don't you always
have these ideas and you're always looking out for people
or have notes on edits. Why don't you just work
there too and be a consultant. So I was a consultant.
It is vague, which really meant I just stuck my
(13:33):
nose in all the time and gave thoughts and suggested
people to be hired or whatever. And I just was
sort of this other voice of a creative eye, what
can we do? But I didn't make any financial decisions
or anything. I just was like, have you seen this person?
Have you seen this video? I think if you cut
this out you'll have a faster video, or add this
joke and a d R or whatever. So all of
(13:55):
that time was truly amazing. From two thousand seven to
who up until I was editor in chief was just
really fun because there was a point in the heyday
of digital comedy where actually got paid by advertisers and
we could advertise on our site before Facebook and social
(14:17):
media sort of drew the eyeballs away from websites and
more onto a platform whatever. That we really could make
whatever we wanted, and it was so fun and it
was really fun. We had such amazing people and it
was such a fun. It was really fun to be
a part of finding great people. It's really fun to
(14:37):
be a part of giving great people ideas and seeing
what they do with It was really fun to just
be in the mix of creative energy, like not even
to be just to walk in and walk down the
hall and see Rose McGowan dresses Beddy Boop in a
hospital room that used to be an editor's office. You
know what, I mean, but for those four hours it
(14:58):
was a hospital room and there was just an energy
to another excitement to it all the time. There was
just people are always creating. People are always running around
filming something, making something. I have an idea the night before,
write it, come into work, film it that day, it's
up that night. Like that's the kind of stuff which
is really exciting to me. That's the kind of stuff
(15:20):
where you really talented people who say I'm doing this.
There are the things that we had to do to
pay the bills, like partnered videos with like corporations or
whatever that were like, hey, we have this celebrity drinking
this soda or whatever and it seems like a video
but it's not. And there was sort of that. But
the payoff for the creators there was like, yeah, you
(15:40):
have to do some of that, but also sales equipment.
Go for it, you know what, go for it. And
the people who did go for it, the people who
did want to have fun in that place, they did
really well there, and not because they were company people.
It's actually the opposite. It's because they were like, I'm
going to make what I want. Like I look at
(16:02):
someone like Eric Cappelle, who we hired early on one
of our first early hires. I knew him from UCB
and he always blew me away at UCB because he
would when I was artistic director of UCB, you would say, oh,
I want to do a sketch show, like everybody did.
But he's like, I want to time the sketch show
too painful. It's dark side of the moon, just like
(16:23):
And I'm like, well, that's I love that because you
want to make something. You're not just making sketches, but
you will have an idea. You want to make something new,
and I think that's incredible and I support that kind
of thinking, which is ambitious. Swinging for the fences. Does
the sketch show work? I don't know, not a hundred percent,
(16:43):
but who cares. It's so fun to watch that. You're
just sort of like, this is so fun and it's
funny and it's great, and it's done in a basement
underneath a Gristindi's and it's more like, am I going
to get famous off that sketch or whatever? No, but
you're building what your point of view is. The people
who took advantage of UCB the same people to take
(17:06):
advantage of Funnier Die. The same kind of people who
are like, Oh, this place is a service that I
can use to get better at who I am, to
get closer to who I am? What's my voice? I
could take chances and find my voice now. Ericappelle made
that movie with Weird. Al Yankovic called Weird so funny,
so great, so electric, and I'm so e psite for
(17:29):
him because I see someone who made that video and
it was just something he wanted to do. And God
bless Mike Farah, who really is the engine of that place.
I don't take any credit even when I was editor
in chief that I'm the engine of that place. Mike
Farah made Funnier Die what it is, and he really did.
(17:51):
He's incredible. He's just like he is passion and his
skills with creative people were incredible. And when he supported something,
he went all the way. And so he's really the
engine of that place. Like there was no note with him.
It was like, let's see what we can do, Let's
see who I can call, Let's see if we're gonna
(18:11):
make it happen. And so it's really that was the
fun of that place. Is people making a Steve Jobs
movie to beat the two other Steve Jobs movies that
like to stay Jobs movies coming out. So Ryan Perez
is just this really funny guy was like, I'm gonna
make a Steve Jobs movie first. That to me is
(18:34):
funny because there's an idea why are you making this?
And it's the same as anything I do, developing TV shows,
developing movies, writing movies, ranging shows, writing on shows, whatever
I'm doing. It's the same as funnier guys like why
are you making this? What's this video? Okay, why are
you making Why are you making this TV show? Why?
What is the story you want to tell? Why are
(18:56):
you doing it? The thing that really resonates is like
if someone knows why they're making something, what they want
to do at the end of it, it just it
just takes it to another level where people watch it
and even if they don't fully thinking about why this
is being made, in every scene, in the jokes and everything,
the dialogue why they're making something will come through. It'll
(19:19):
just sort of be a part of the essence of
the piece because there's an idea behind it that's driving
it the whole time, This invisible hand that's guiding the piece.
The whole time. And that's something what a Pell, Like
I said before about a Pell wanting to match it
with Dark Side of the Moon, there's something he wanted
to do, something he was trying to do for your working,
for your writing is do you find that there's a
(19:41):
y that consistently comes up when you're writing, when you're
making your projects, Like what that y is for you? Well,
it depends on the project. So you know, at Sanchez,
we always wanted to make something that spoke to people.
And sometimes like when Will and Adam and I think
HINCHI wrote it the Campaign movie with Zach and Will
(20:06):
taal Fanakis, and that's really about campaign finance. That movie
is silly and funny and whatever, but it's really a
movie about campaign finance. Anchorman and Inncormand two is really
about the death of news. Anchorman two more than anchormand
it's really about the prophetization of news. Um my father
worked in news and and I remember my my father
(20:30):
passed away and at his funeral, Ted Compell said to me,
He's like, hey, an Anchorman two, you took you stole
One of my lines that I've been saying around the
country is news today tells people what they want to hear,
not what they need to hear. And I think there
are things that Adam and Will did so well, which
was putting something underneath that was like, this is really
(20:52):
what this movie is about, but all of this on
top of it is so you enjoy it, and and
not to lead with theme, but to have that sort
of in the background is always very helpful. So sometimes
I will write something about the nihilistic nature of of
social media trying to just get clicks, the nihilism of
(21:13):
if you're a yoga enthusiast, and then how do you
get to be someone who has shown strongly anti vacts,
anti whatever is because you're learning about homeopathic medicine, which
leads to alternative medicine, which leads to maybe vaccines aren't this,
and maybe you do this, and then all of a
sudden you get into this other world. I'm not saying
any of that's good and that's bad. In this business,
(21:35):
sometimes getting other meetings and getting other opportunities is why
you write something. Another thing was about corporations destroying the
dairy industry, just the consolidation of that. And other times
I write about something that I live with all the time.
Is I am. I'm constantly lived with I was raised Catholic,
and I live with a Catholic guilt all the time.
(21:56):
I constantly think I'm in trouble. I constantly think that
done something wrong to somebody at all times. And this
is how I live my life that I can't escape.
And and so I write really dark characters that sort
of embrace their sins and don't learn from their sins
and move forward. So those are like the two themes
that sort of it just depends on the project, you know. Yeah, yeah,
(22:20):
we will be right back with more ridiculous news after
this short break. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, don't to confuse
you would now do ridiculous news. Awesome, So we're back
with our amazing guest, Owen Burke, and and it's been
(22:40):
great getting to talk to you about you know, not
only climate change, but um, you know, your work, and
I think just kind of how the things that you
care about influence your writing. And another huge aspect of
who you are as an artist and as a creator
is your career in improv. And you are part of
the legendary improv group was actor Montalban, which now kind
(23:01):
of performs as Dinosaur at Largo in l A. And
I have never seen respect to perform, But I listened
to a lot of improv podcasts throughout the years, and
that is a team that comes up all the time
and so like, and especially back before you know, like
a lot of improv sets would be on YouTube, would
be online. Just the fact that you would hear about
(23:21):
this improv group in New York, you know what I mean?
I think just speaks to the real impact that y'all
had on the form. And so I guess the question
that I have for you, or a question I have
for you, is, you know, you've improvised for a long
time while also you know, having the success in television,
and you know, what is it about improv that where
(23:43):
you stick with it? You know, like you've you've gone
onto to TV, but yet you also continue to do
improv And I'd love to know why that is for you? Well, improv.
I'll say this improv was when I first saw improv,
I didn't know what I was doing with my life,
and I wanted to be creative and I tried to
stand up, but I wasn't really into the vibe there
(24:04):
and and I was a p A and uh and
I was like really trying to figure out my life.
And when I saw my downstairs neighbors took me to
my first improv show, long form improv show, I just
saw the form. I just saw what they were doing,
and I was like, this is what I want to
do for the rest of my life. It was an
epiphany moment more than oh, this will help me get
on certain alive, or this will help me get a
(24:25):
job at w m E or whatever the path maybe. Um,
I didn't know what it was. I just knew this
was the past. I didn't know where it would take me,
but I knew that the art form spoke to me.
And so those of us that started at UCB early on,
before there was even a theater. Uh, we all did
it because we love the form. We wanted to do
(24:47):
this form. It wasn't like this will get us something.
There was no idea of this will get us. There
was nothing to get There was nothing. There was no
history of this. If you do this, you get this.
There was no theater, there was no institution in which
to grow. We built that theater years later. So that
was something where we just love the form. And so
(25:08):
the people with whom I perform a dinosaur right now.
The same people allowed from respect of and a lot
since my first improv class. Paul Sheer, I met him
in my first improv class. He's god father to my daughter,
you know what I mean, Like, this is someone I've
known for a long time and this is something we
love to do. You know, when you CEB Theater closed,
(25:31):
like it was very painful to us. We performed every
week and that's a that's a luxury, and that was
something amazing and it was really painful when it went away.
And I remember I was working on Drunk History and
we were filming and you know when you're filming re enactments,
you're filming long days or whatever, doing a story a day,
(25:53):
and it's so fun. That's a show too. That just
so fun to make because such talented people in the
same way funnier and I was. It's such talented people
doing extraordinary things with limited resources, limited time, limited light,
limited money, and just delivering in an art form that's
(26:15):
like just elevated what they were doing. Jeremy Connor, Derek Waters,
the dps that we had, the gaffers, we had, the
crew was incredible, or a d Jason Brown who was
a production manager on the Weird Movie, just people who
made stuff happen that you're like, Wow, we did that,
it's amazing. I remember leaving, like we were throwing in
some ranch somewhere and I was leaving and I was like, oh, man,
(26:37):
I think I could make my show at an ID
thirty show. And I'm like, I think I can make it.
And Derek was like, I can't believe You're gonna go
do an improv show right now. I was like, well,
one day I'm not going to be able to do
an improv show, so I'm gonna do it as much
as I can until I can. And it really is
something that is so fun to do because once you
(26:59):
there's just like everything you learn about improv, then you
get you do and probably you're sort of bad. I
was sort of bad at it, but I was like,
I'm gonna just succumb to the grace of this and
try to get better. I got less bad, less bad,
less bad, less bad, started to get better, better, better, better,
and once you get through that, you start having real
fun with it. It's really fun and it's meditative because
(27:22):
for an hour you're on stage and you're not thinking,
you're not worried. You're not. You're in the moment completely.
You're just in this moment and you're having fun. And
it's I get to do it with people with whom
I've performed for years and years and years, so we
all know each other. It doesn't mean we plan anything.
It just means if I'm doing a scene with Riggle,
(27:43):
I know that he's going to be my dad and
I'm the son who wants to take poetry class and
he's gonna get furious, you know, because I know because
I want him to be able to yell at me.
I want Riggle to yell. So how do I get
Reriggle to yell at me? You know? And so it's
like you started thinking about, like how do I make
the most out of other people? And there's an idea
with the improv which just sort of fits my personality
(28:08):
and the things I do is the reason why I'm
not so you know. I've even been doing open mines
to stand up recently, just for stage time, just have fun,
and I'm not planning touring or being on Kimmel or
anything like that. I just do it to like do it.
But like I know, improv is my first love, because
it's who I am. It's about serving other people. So
(28:28):
why I think I was artistic director, it's why I
was worked the way I worked at Funnier and Die.
Everything I'm talking about, the way talk about you guys,
it's like it's the other person. It's and maybe it's
being the youngest of four boys, you know, or something
where it's just sort of give more than you get
or something. And I'm a big believer and you get
(28:49):
more from giving than taking. And with improv, that's what
we do. And it's not some I'm not some you know,
ethical standard bearer. I'm better than anybody else. But it's
just sort of my nature not to be the center
of attention or whatever, and but to actually be a
part of a bigger machine, a bigger collaborative effort, which
(29:11):
is why I love production. I love plays like Drunk
History or making a TV shows because you're a part.
Everyone's a part of it together, and there are no
every Everyone is just as important. You know, the p
A is not locking up the street corner and someone
walks through the shot and while you're fighting the light,
that's just as important as the camera operator not turning
(29:32):
on the camera, or the director not paying attention to
what is happening, or the actor for getting on. It's all.
Everyone has their part and it's really and everyone on
set is talented and you have to respect that talent.
And it's with improv it's this shared moment and you're
also sharing with the audience. It's addictive because everyone's in
(29:52):
on this joke that if you went and told it afterwards,
no one would get it. Oh wait, so he had
hand for ends Hammans. Yeah that doesn't make sense, no,
but because he was a surgeon. He was a surgeon
with a you don't get it, and it's just like
it's hard, but the audience, like if you can make
two D people, everyone sees the same thing at the
(30:15):
same time. It's something magical about that that that everyone
is sharing a group a mind and it's not just
the people on stage, but it's the whole audience sees
something that was not there before and was not planned
there before. It all it's like magic. And there's there's
a reason why we get repeat you know people coming
(30:38):
to our shows is because it's always different because we're
all just making it up and there's something so fun
about that. So that's why I love him, pro I
love It's just fun and it's it's it's about sharing,
and you know, it's just it's it's like anything. It's
just like really fun to do. And I just really
(30:59):
appreciate that. I feel very lucky that I found it
when I did, and I always I feel very blessed.
I had these downstairs neighbors who thought it was funny
enough to take me to that show, and uh, and
I just feel very lucky. And so but then it
all comes around because my downstairs neighbor took me to
that show is Will Arnett, who I just wrote for,
(31:20):
you know what I mean. So it's like it's all
it's all weird, you know, it's everything is connected, you know,
the same way meeting Mike Farrell through Jerry O'Connell because
I was a p a on Joe's apartment. In everything
in this business is connected. Everything is. It's a small community,
even though it's huge and vast, and you can feel
(31:40):
incredibly lonely in this world. Everyone knows each other or
you're just one degree of separation away from who I
was and who I knew and this and that it's incredible.
It's incredible, you know, yeah, well, you know, speaking of
all that, and you know improv and fort marking our
huge fans of improv and and that's where my comedy
(32:02):
career got started to because my uh one of my
roommates girlfriends was a musical improviser and said, hey, should
come check out a show at this theater Dad's garage
and it changed my life. And uh, that's there's that
synchronicity in those moments. But random question that we have
for you that Mark came up with the Mark I love.
This question is is do you have an opinion about
(32:24):
improv that you think most people might disagree with? Mm hmm.
I don't know if I do and most people disagree,
I don't think so because of what I was, I
don't know, Like I was sort of taught, Like my
first improv workshop was with Amy Poehler and I always
remember that, you know. I remember like when after I
(32:48):
saw that ask at show, I went up to her
and I was saying, how do I get involved? She
was like, take classes. That's what I did. I'm teaching
when this Saturday come And I remember when she's like,
that's what I did. But there's this idea we're all
doing the same thing, and this is how we all start.
And it took away the sort of the mystery of
like what is this or whatever. And then when I
took that workshop with her, the thing that I remember
(33:09):
get choked up, but like the thing that I remember
moston than anything was she taught respect that everyone in
this room is trying to do it. It's trying to
get less bad, it's trying to explore this art form.
So let's be respectful of one another. Let's keep building
together and allowing people to be vulnerable and allowing them
(33:31):
for that time, and we respect people's vulnerability. And I
took that was like I made because it was my
first workshop, and you know, such a beautiful part of
improv is really respecting someone else's idea, dropping your own
idea if it changes or whatever. It's really about respecting
the intelligence of the of the audience, respecting the intelligence
of your fellow players. And really, I don't know, that
(33:54):
was like a big takeaway from me and something I
thought about when I taught. It's something I thought about
when I gave notes as artistic director on someone's show,
or how to cancel someone show or pass on a
show or do something, or when I did development with
Will and Adam. It's like there's this idea of when
someone's pitching you something, they're vulnerable and they're saying, I
(34:15):
don't know this is a guy. I think this is good.
I wrote this alone in my house. I hope you
think it's good too, remembering that what they're doing is vulnerable.
And when I tell this doing a workshop for some
students now, um in this m Community Center down the
street from me that that Paul, my friend Paul and
(34:38):
June got involved in and just think it's such a
special place. And m I tell those students is you know,
they're teenagers, so they don't want to like really be vulnerable.
They don't want to take chances. And I tell them
being in this room doing improv, going to this room
to say I want to sit in and watch this,
(34:58):
going to an improv class, going on stage to do
stand up, painting a painting, writing a poem and reading
it at a coffee shop open like whatever, if does
even exists, I don't know those are that's all positive.
And so if you get a step on stage, or
you going to an improv class, you go to a
rehearsal or you go to an open mic. It's all positive. Now.
(35:20):
How positive it is is how well you do or
how maybe fell back a little or you make a
mistake or whatever. And as long as you're being respectful
of other people and you're not being hurtful to other people,
it's all positive. And if you can think of it
that way, where you are, it's always positive because you're
(35:40):
trying something and you're gonna get less bad and then
better at it. And if you just always look at
it like a line that keeps moving up and up
and up and up, it's positive. And to remember that
it's positive and not to and if someone else is
doing it and you're like, oh that person, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't know if that person is so great. Hey,
(36:00):
maybe you're not so great, but maybe you are great,
and maybe that person is trying, and maybe that person
is working through stuff that you don't know about, and
maybe you should just be respectful of their space as
they're trying it to the same way you would want
someone to be respectful of your space. Making mistakes, you know,
everyone making missteps, saying something that's off color and learning
from it, you know, being like oh gosh, I guess
(36:23):
that's not an idea that I want to say over
again or whatever, like oh wow, and oh I just
stepped over this person or this person stepped over me.
Learning from these always going towards a feeling of respect,
not to just belittle that word respect, but it really
is about giving that respecting that person's bubble of creativity
(36:45):
and allowing them to be that the same way you're
allowing yourself, having a self respect for yourself, you know.
And that's sort of I don't know of other people
think I think they do, and I think that there's
a general like everyone that I perform with, and I
think it's sort of a blessing of comeing up through
an improv is that it's really hard to be a
jerk and be an improviser. It's really hard to be
selfish should be an improviser, because those people sort of
(37:08):
fall away after level three, level four of the classes
or first year into shows or whatever, because no one
wants to perform with them because like they ruin every scene,
you know, they do this and they do that, and
it's not like a canceling of that person. It's sort
of like that person has to find their own form
because this is a form of giving. And sometimes I
(37:29):
would tell my students when I was teaching classes that
used to be like, maybe should do short form, or
maybe you should be a stand up because you keep
wanting to make it about yourself and not about the scene.
And I'm not saying that you're a bad person. I'm
just saying there are different art forms for a reason.
There's the reason why I don't connect to stand up
the same way I connect to improv. It's the way
I'm built. So maybe people who want to do improv
(37:50):
because it's the popular thing to do, maybe you should
try stand up because maybe they'll be happy they did.
You know, if I stuck with stand up, I don't
know what kind of person I would be. I don't
know if I would be a happy person, or if
I would be successful at it at all, or if
I would ever found my groove, because I just don't
know if that's who I am. And I think to
take a mic and be like what I'm saying is
(38:11):
the truth and you all have to get on board.
I just don't know if i'd that person, even though
I feel like I'm talking a lot now, But like
with improv. I just feel like that was something for
me and for other people maybe stand up is or
short form improv is, or just writing sketches or being
characters that are like I have lips for a head
and like great. I always think about this when I
(38:34):
was working on Joe's Apartment and I was in the
MTV offices all the time, and there was a guy
named Abby to Cooley who is a early executive at MTV,
and I remember he had to sell his animation cell
at Beavis and butt Head in his office. It was framed,
it was really signed by Mike Judge, and I remember
it was I don't even know which one Beavis had
(38:56):
like that had he was the Great Cornholio and he
had to shirt over his head and he's like, I
am the Great corn Holio and there was and my
judge drew a picture of Abby to Coolie just saying great,
and I think, or that's great, and I think that
that to me is what I responded to that when
I saw that, and I was like, that to me
(39:17):
is a great executive. That to me, I was twenty
two years old. I'm like, that's the kind of person
I see myself as as someone's like, that's great. Be
the great Cornelia, because you know what, go for it,
be that thing. Do it because that's what you are.
Maybe not be who I am. And then how we
play together is its own thing, or maybe we're compatible,
(39:38):
maybe we're not just like dating or whatever it is.
It's like there's just different things, but just celebrating someone
trying stuff. Like when Sarah Squirm got on Starting Alive.
I was so happy for her because I let's see
her at UCB just being outlandish and insane and doing
stuff and those videos that you do at YouTube. I'm like,
(39:59):
who's a person? And I don't like a lot of
the stuff that's because it's squishy and gooey and weird
and it's not who I am. But it makes me
laugh because she's so committed to it and she's she
doesn't give an f what anyone else thinks, and she
just commissed to who she is. And I'm like, yeah,
do it up. That's it. And I was like, Wow,
(40:21):
she got on that show. That's huge, and I think
it's huge for the show, and I think it's huge
for her, and I just root for so hard because
she's so committed to who she is. It's like she's
the great corner Hoolia. That's great, do it up? You know, Well,
we got one final thing we want to do with you,
and it's a pretty silly game. All right. So you
may be aware that you share the name with the
(40:41):
actor Owen Burke, who has appeared in the movies such
as The Town, The Equalizer, and Coda. So we wanted
to make a game centered around the both of you.
All called who tweeted it owen Burke or owen Burke.
So you only have two possible answers for each question.
We're gonna read a tweet and you can only answer
with owen Burke owen Burke. And also to race, can
(41:02):
I jump in? Can I jump? Everyone's absolutely. I actually
thought of a movie idea that will never made. But
I thought of a movie idea the other day. I
was like about owen Burke because we have such a
rare name and uh, and it's uh. I was like
that I get cast and I managed like, they want
you to be heavy in the new John Wickman, I'm
like me, yeah, it's an offer an author. Maybe they
(41:25):
heard through Jason man Juga said I'm a good actor. Okay,
and then I show up and they're like what, no,
how Bill Murray talks about I thought like the Coen
Brothers were making Garfield or something. Someone just cast me
to be like heavy, like you better pay up John
Wick or whatever. It would be like they're like, oh,
we've made a huge mistake. We've already paid him. I
(41:48):
was like, that would be like, oh my god. And
then the real like he took my that's up to me,
my job. Now he's after me or something because I
do that. Sorry, but it's really fun. I love that
for a movie. I would watch that movie for shared U. So,
but this game, the way to work is, I'll read
a tweet. You gotta tell me if Ohenburg tweeted it
(42:08):
or if Owen Burke tweeted it. And to raise the stakes, Uh,
if you win the game, you get a Ferrari, but
if you lose the game, unfortunately, you get a Ferrari. Alright,
so we'll hop in to round one of Ohenburg or Owenburg.
So this is the first tweet. All right, So psyched
for at Nicole Buyer. Just the funniest who said that
owned Burke Burke me Owenberg exactly exactly right. Exactly. What's
(42:34):
the funniest absolutely yeah. Uh. This is next tweet, Getting
emails from Escape Rooms evokes the same heartache is reading
James Joyce's The Dead. Wow, that could be either of us.
(42:54):
I don't know what did I say that emails from
scaped Room. I'm gonna say that's the other Owenberg though
it feels like something that I might. I don't know.
It's the same from August one. Next. This next tweet
(43:15):
is I love all caps, Love all caps. Hashtag the
Boys so cool, so fun, so gory, Glady's back. I
mean that could be that's me. I mean, I love
the Boys, So I want to say that's me. I
love that show. That is so much. Do you watch
that show? I mean that. I'll just say this quickly.
(43:38):
Season one, fourth episode, the Plane, The plane episode goes
give me spoilers. The Plane episode, it's the same episode
when the Deepest stealing the dolphin that he's in love
from the place. How they alternated from horror to comedy,
back and forth. I think it's one of the most
(44:00):
dynamic episodes of television. I I don't even know another one.
It was so incredible. I love that show. It's really great.
It's the best. Oh my god, this is the last one.
And I will also say this is going to be
the hardest one. Okay, al right, this last one. All right,
Damn Pence, answer the damn question. That's the other own.
(44:21):
Actually that was a trick question, Owen, so sorry tricky
that was from Sinbad. Uh so it's like neither Owen. Congratulations,
you did great, you win a Ferrari. Thank you, thank
you for playing, Owen Burker Owenburg. Yeah, I love this game.
So how can our listeners if they want to follow
(44:42):
you and check out stuff you're doing. What's the best
place for them to follow you? Well, I'm on Twitter
at Owen Burke, and I'm on Instagram at Owenburg, but
I don't really post on Twitter anymore that much, very rarely,
and I very rarely post on Instagram pretty much to
promote my shows. But I'm on the Hit the Hit
in Buys group Dinosaur with Paul Sheer, Rob Hubo, Rob
(45:03):
regal Um, and we have a lot of great guests
all the time. Nicole Bayer played with us the other
knife son born lad is like it's so Carl Tart,
Oh my god, the funniest. But I got to Jackson.
We just have a great group of people that play
with us. Check Carter said Moore's Um, I guess that's
(45:24):
the only way. I don't know. I should I give
my personal phone number. Don't don't give me. We don't
want to get too many calls. Um. But that does
bring us to our final segment here, Mark, Yes, Yes,
So our final segment is called the spring of Inspiring Inspirations.
This is when we read an inspiring quote in the
episode on a positive note and uh oh when this
(45:44):
comes from you, this gave Bill and I so much joy.
We had a great laugh at this. Uh this is
a tweet that you had which said, why why why
you have to keep seeing headlines about the Snyder cut?
Why when will it stop? Laughter out that for a
long time? It's true. During that time with the Seneca,
(46:07):
I'm like, who what is this? Who cares? Like you
watch Justice League or a these movies, You're like, what
this is? I don't want to see this longer? I
don't want to Like why is everyone talking about like
this as this big deal, like that we should all
see this master work that's been hidden, Like I don't know, Like,
(46:29):
come on, everyone just got to relax. It was so
like every time I opened up Twitter or whatever, it's
like the Snider cut isn't coming? Is it not coming?
What is it like? To be honest, I don't even
know if it ever came out. I don't know. And
that's the crazy thing with stuff now on the internet,
not to your stuff, but like I have no idea
what people are talking about most of the time, like
(46:52):
especially with like outrage, like I can't believe he said this.
I can't believe it. I'm like, all right, what did
he say? What did he say? And I can't find
the article about what? Like, I'm like, what did he say?
What is every article is like and we're against him
and we're agains him, like okay, but what did he say?
It's like all of these other places just glambing onto
conflict for hits and it's like, well what what did
(47:14):
what did he actually say? And I'm like I can
never find that piece of information. Ned, Yeah, it's never
like this is the quote, this is the reaction, it's
he was on. This is now we're all mad, Okay,
be mad. I'm not judging that, and now you react
to things. But I am like I would like to know,
and I would help how watching you know, just tell
(47:36):
me what it's like in a news article would be
like the cops arrested this guy and what did he do?
Five other articles? Oh, bob the back? Oh now I
see what it is like? Did know? It would be
like res just tell me that's like that Snyder cut?
Why why why You're scrolling through the article trying to
find it and accidentally click on an ad and then
(47:57):
seventeen other things pop up and then then you're on
another rabbit hole. Um, well, Owen, it means so much
for you to come on the show. It really means
a lot. Every time we get to talk to you.
It's amazing and um, you know, thank you so so
much for being here and for sharing your joy and
your knowledge. And I know that this episode is gonna
bean a lot to our listeners and especially those improvisers
(48:19):
who are always looking for encouragement from a master like you.
It's always great to hear um. So thanks again, and
to our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in.
It means the world to us that you spend your
time with us, So thank you for being here with us.
Thank you, and you can email us at Ridiculous News
that I heart media dot com to stay in touch
and on Facebook and i G follow Ridiculous News, and
(48:41):
you can check out our comedy videos at Mark Kendall Comedy.
By All, Thank you making great stuff. Ridiculous News is
(49:03):
hosted by Mark Kendall and Bill Worley. Executive producers are
Ben Bullen and Noel Brown, Produced and edited by Terry Harrison.
Research provided by Casey Willis and theme music by four
Eyes and Doctor Delight. Four more podcasts from my Heart
Radio visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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