Well, you know, he's so hard

to read.

Like he just is.

Yes.

He's like such a stoic guy.

And there was, there was this, um, there, there was this, uh, so we did this movie called, uh, Owen Wilson and I did a movie called father figures, which, which nobody saw, but, um, but, uh, but I still, I actually really adore the movie and I think it's, it's, it's really sweet.

And, uh, um, In the end – and Chris Walken plays this guy.

that the worst? I

W- do you remember that?

Of course.

Um, so he just came in one night.

I think it was a Monday night, which was the New Talent Showcase, which was sort of the, the, the, [laughs] the, the way that comedy clubs exploited young, eager comics by forcing them to bring audience members to get stage time.

But I'm standing by the door, and, uh, and George Carlin just kind of in, walks in very quietly by himself, and, uh, and I'm just like, "H- hi." You know, [laughs] "I'm, uh, Mr.

Carlin.

Uh, n- nice to see you." And, uh, and, and I said, "Well, you know, it's not very crowded." The Boston Comedy Club was never very crowded.

I, d- didn't you fall apart? Didn't you get tired?

[laughs]

I think, you know, uh, without sort of, yeah, uh, driving us, uh, down a dirt road too much, I, I, um, there, there's like, yeah, there are some stories, true stories, uh, from our history that I think are worth telling.

One in particular that I've spent the better part of a decade developing and optioned books on and stuff and, uh, you know, if someone gives me a bunch of money, I'll make a cool World War II fighter plane movie.

[laughs]

No.

Uh, this, this was such an easy yes.

I mean, M- Mike and I have history.

Uh, we worked together and I just, I, I, I love Mike's directing style.

Right

... and, and sort of take, and feeling more present and, and that's to say, um, that I think, uh, that...

Oh, which is another thing in my life that I've really washed in and out of periods of great anxiety or periods of o- openness and flexibility and, 'cause anxiety always comes with a, you know, wanting to control your environment and control your circumstances, um, which is almost always a bad thing, [laughs] right? Like being, trying to be flexible and move-

... and you said, "Let me start a podcast about this type of stuff."

Exactly.

[laughs] Uh, no, so, so SNAFU came about because, um, y- hi- history is sort of w- uh, I'm just a rabbit hole guy.

I get really cur- curious about certain things, and I wind up just reading and reading and, and wanting to talk about random little nuggets, whatever it is, and sometimes it's topical news items, sometimes it's a weird science story, uh, and oftentimes it's something history-related.

And so as I was trying to sort of ponder if, if I fit into the podcast lands- landscape somewhere, it was like, well, this is, this is an easy, easy thing, th- this feels, like, very natural, a very natural thing that I can zoom in on is, like-

Right

...

but he still has a chin strap on.

And this is fully background.

This, this character has no lines or anything, but it's just such a wonderful, uh, example of, of all the ways that they were just, like, really a- attacking every frame with discipline.

Like, how do we, how can we insert another joke into this? Um, and again, like I said, there's sort of this chaotic unpredictability to that that's so fun, and I think it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

As a comedy fan, you're just like, "What's next? What's next? What, what, what, what's it gonna be?" And I don't think that that really came back in movie making until...

Yes.

On a bad day, it can block me as I'm starting on a new thing, where it's like, oh, well, I mean, you could put all this love and energy into it, and it could kinda fizzle.

Yeah.

100%.

I've had a million of those things.

[laughs] Whether it's, like, a giant movie or just, like, a little project in my garage orYeah.

All, all of, all-- every-- and everything in between.

Songs that I've written, played for people, or certain shows, live shows as a musician or a comedian.

Can you think of an example of a piece of feedback somebody gave you that was really invaluable to the way you moved forward? Like, do you have an acting coach? Like, does someone work with you before, as you get ready for any new project? Do you do it for your wife? Like, who's your-

You also have a micro humiliation around an episode of The Office.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

This is a beauty.

OK, so this is this is a classic.

Everyone's had this.

This is my version of it.

some diapers.

Yeah

... a lot easier.

[singing] Hey, I'm Ed Helms, host of SNAFU, a show about history's greatest screwups.

Today, I am joined by two of my all-time favorite humans on the planet, Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer.

Of course, you know them as Angela Martin and Pam Beesly from The Office, where we spent many years making each other chuckle, both on and off camera.

These days, they co-host the wildly beloved Office Ladies podcast, where they deep dive into every episode, every single episode of The Office, with their very own distinct brand of insight, warmth, heart, and hilarity.

Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

We love you.

Sam, can you play that clip?

At some point while we were shooting, I stepped off the set.

I, I don't, I think I was probably just going to get a snack or something at craft service, and I walked through the garage of the condo where we were shooting, and the garage was also a location in the episode.

They had done all the set decoration for the garage, and I noticed this amazing detail in there, which is that all of the items in Michael Scott's garage [laughs] were things that he had bought from infomercials, like late-night infomercials.

And this was just, like, a background joke in the show.

Like, I, I remember seeing, like, a Bowflex and, like, a meat dehydrator, like, all this random stuff, and it just made me laugh so hard and was such a reminder of how incredible The Office team was, everyone at every level, from production design, set decoration.

All those details, all of those people that worked on the show were so creative and contributing to the comedy of that show in very big and very small ways, and it all made such a difference.

I

was like, if it's for Jake, it's probably for Ed.

No, but I did.

Like, I've always just been this kind of, like, you know, weird curiosity rabbit hole nerd.

And I got into the... and history has always been a part of that.

And so I was like, can I do, is there like a fun, cool podcast about history? And so for three seasons, we actually did this pretty hardcore podcast.

That's like highly produced history called, and it's called snafu.

Although, is he too close to do it?

Oh my gosh.

And there were a lot of, you know, there were, there, there were a lot of major chapters in, in our lives that, that went, that people went through, marriages, divorces, children, all these kind of major life events that were happening, and sometimes I'll see an episode and I'll be like, "Oh, yeah, that's when so-and-so was going through this," or, "That's when s- that's when such- so-and-so child was born," or, you know.

And, and that, that stuff's really beautiful to, to remember.

Even the, even the parts that are, that might f- uh, have been painful chapters, they're still merely meaningful chapters in our lives and histories and, and it's just so wild to have this show that's kind of a bookmark, right? You can just go to any point.

I mean, for us, the, having made the show, I can recall things that I was experiencing when I see a, a, a scene or, or, or a, uh, or I just, if I, if I catch a chunk of an episode, I can remember where I was, like, in my life a little bit more and, um-

[laughs]

... and all of its history.

Um, and he also has, uh, his best friend Regan, who is Native American and grew up on the, the reservation next to the town in Upstate New York.

First, tell us about the, the worst stand-up bomb you ever had.

Uh, (laughs) okay, so the, there was, there are so many, but probably one of the biggest ones, uh, there's this big comedy club out on Long Island, uh, in Levittown, called Governor's, and that was a, like, Jerry Seinfeld came up through there, and some big, a lot of big comedians routinely played there.

It was a huge room, and they packed people in, and it was, like, a very different vibe.

It's very Long Island.

It's very different than New York City.

So I got my, one of my first (laughs) opportunities to, to middle there, which means, like, to do the 30-minute set before the, the headliner.

I'd never done a 30-minute set, and I didn't really have 30 minutes of, like, reliable material.

So talk to us about the process of getting there, because I think a lot of people would, would crash and burn like you did, and say, "Forget it, I'm done." Like, "I get that this could be a growth experience, but, like, I'm, I'm not confident that I can get good enough at this that it's worth the pain." Where did that confidence come from?

It sounds like, I mean, like a breakup almost, like you're getting rejected in the same way as if someone dumped you.

I think there's something to that, yeah.I'll tell you one more quickly, which was a, a bigger scale, which was after I got onto The Daily Show, I suddenly had so many more opportunities as a comedian, and now I'm like Ed Helms from The Daily Show.

So my booker, manager was like, "I got you, uh, you're gonna headline Mohegan Sun," which is a huge casino in Connecticut.

And I get up there and I'm doing an hour set, and I have a brutal night.

I'm so anxious on stage, it's coming across.

It's a terrible night.

The ne- [laughs] I had four m- three or four more nights to go at this booking.

Like, I get that this could be a growth experience, but, like, I'm- I'm not confident that I can get good enough at this that it's worth the pain." Where did that confidence come from?

How

does she fit in that? Mom is a great laugher.

Appreciate it.

Yeah.

Great.

And so she was there to kind of reward a good laugh.

A good joke or a good performance or a good kind of moment.

When did you do that? When did you pick up the banjo?

We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper.

And his stage name? Sexy Sweat.

In 2020, I had a simple idea: let's find Reggie.

We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part, our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakleaf, sports editor and aspiring rapper.

And his stage name, Sexy Sweat.

In 2020, I had a simple idea: Let's find Reggie.

Yeah.

It's like, like what you just said, it, it makes perfect sense that you would want to, to keep cult members from, uh, from gaining intimacy and loyalty to, to their families because it would undermine their commitment to him.

Um, how clear do you think...

Like, just generally speaking, when a cult leader mandates something like that, do you think they're aware of the reason they're doing that or are they just sort of they're-

Yeah.

That's also one of the sad lessons of SNAFU.

Like, this is obviously, uh, you know, like, this massive child sex trafficking operation is, is so intensely horrifying and tragic and heartbreaking, but you just, you see it all across, especially, like-

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

... about- about the guy? Like, do we have a sense of what it's like to just be in the same room with this guy? Is he funny? Is he, like...

Uh, is- is- does he kind of have a-... a weird-- a warmth to him? Is he chatty, accessible, or is he kind of like a stern, you know, like patrician type, uh...

Do, uh, do we have a sense of his-

Yeah.

Is he...

In these letters, is he citing, like, sort of a, a divine message that he heard directly from God, or is he citing just sort of, like, his hot take on Biblical passages, or, uh, or just sort of, like, some new philosophy out of whole cloth? Like, what, what's the nature of th- of these Mo Letters?

Is there any tech product or service out there right now that you think will sort of become a historical snafu that you might write about in a future volume of a book? Like, what out there today in the field of technology do you look at and think, oh, that can't possibly be good?

Wow.

So I actually have kind of a macro take on this, which is that we're at a point with device usage where it's clearly bad for us.

Like, it's clearly... harming us.

And so I, it feels like cigarettes in the nineties, right.

Where, where it was, everybody knows, but like, we're come on, we're still doing it.

Right.

So what should Elle do about trying to live in the moment, take advantage of the time that we have, but also avoid freaking out her friends and family?

Uh, what interested you in sort of large-scale snafus, mistakes, etc.? Tell us about this.

Well, so I've, I've always just had a, a, a kind of curiosity bug.

I love going down rabbit holes of, of curiosity, and history has always been there as just a great thing to dig into.

Uh, a couple of years ago, I started a podcast called SNAFU, and we're three seasons in on that, and that's a podcast that goes into sort of a deep dive exploration of, of these historical screw-ups.

And it just was so fun, and I was finding so much material in the research that, uh, I don't know, a book seemed like a natural next step.

And it's a...

It's fun because it's...

But I'm curious, themes that you might have found.

but you're

actually I'm glad you brought it up in that context because so much of what like there are a few threads that I think emerge in studying these things.

Yeah.

And one is one that I mean.

Hubris, obviously.

Sure.

But And the secrecy is a big one that you just mentioned.

These people have

Yeah.

Okay, great.

This one's amazing.

This was the, the Cold War, the 1950s.

Cold War did not bring out the best in us, as it turns out.

A plan was hatched to shoot a nuclear warhead at the moon, and, uh, you might be wondering, "Why? Why would anyone think this is a good idea?" The thinking was that, you know, we're in fierce competition with the Soviets, everyone's sort of living in, in nuclear existential dread.

If we can hit the moon with a nuclear warhead, the Soviets will be so terrified that we'll win the Cold War.

Both.

It's

history.

I read somewhere that someone described Oscar Wilde as like the sharpest wit they had ever known and that he was like the fastest with a zinger or a comeback or just a kind of quip or a joke or a comment on a moment.

And that's Zach.

I've never seen the speed that he like delivers a quip off of a situation like or you say something dumb and he like instantly has the the kind of zinger or or come back.

And it's not always it's not always a zinger, like a kind of mean spirited thing.

Sometimes it's just a silly, ridiculous thing.

It will be.

Right.

Like, how, how does it affect people, and can we weaponize it or use it in, in advantageous ways? And yes, it just devolved into, like, a guy jerking off behind a, a glass mirror, [laughs] like, watching people.

And it, it's so much darker than that too.

Like, they wound up drugging prisoners.

They wound up drugging people that they would go into bars and drug people and then observe them for hours afterwards and just basically watch them melt down on these crazy acid trips that they had no idea that they were going on.

People thought they were going insane.

And this is a very weird factoid.

Mm-hmm

Well, you know what? Because right now, this feels like a very, very heavy moment, but it's not, like, like give me a, a, a, a snafu in this book that just stuck out to you that you said, "I cannot believe this happened in modern history."

Uh, okay.

So, it's the 1950s.

It's the, the Cold War is really heating up.

The United States really wants to flex its nuclear muscle, and so they hatch a plan to shoot nuclear missiles at the moon.

The thinking is the Soviets will see these nuclear explosions on the moon, and they'll be scared to death and shaking in their boots.

This is Looney Tunes.

This book and the podcast, why do you want to do it? To bring people joy, to make them laugh, to give them information they never thought could be true but they're really happy to have?

Pete Hegseth.

Okay.

Pete Hegseth would be a little like, um, Packer.

Kash Patel?

Hmm.

Hmm, hmm, hmm.

Hmm.

Oh, what was Zach Wood's character? There's something about...