Hmm.

It's, it's just about his rings mostly.

But Wayne Gretzky, there's, nobody talks about anybody.

I mean, there's, there's Ovechkin and people who've had great careers, but nobody's comparing him.

Nobody's debating this, you know, because of his all-around game.

And, but Wayne Gretzky was really like probably the, the shyest and most low-key of any, any athlete we'd ever had there.

'Cause they all come and they have a certain inner confidence to them, you know? A certain I don't give a damn quality, where they're not that nervous.

That's awesome.

For ad-free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to MS Now Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Podcasts.[upbeat music] Thank you for your, uh, inquiry.

I've brought in a couple of people who have worked with Steve O'Donnell.

So can we cut to, uh, the first, uh, my first guest- Oh, my God ... who's gonna help you.

Did you see him? That's Jim Downey.

[laughs] Hi, Barack.

Now, I brought one other person who worked on the, this Late Night with David Letterman show.

Everyone but yourself has forgotten.

Of course

... especially all things SNL.

So he's like, "The first time you host a show, it's like, oh my God, how am I going to do it? I, I...

What, why am I even here?" Full imposter syndrome.

"Second time you host a show, it's like, I can't believe I made it through the first show.

Is it possible I could possibly do the second show as well as the first show?"

There, there was a secret club

... you're a five-timer, and, uh, you know, now it's time for the club.

Again, I just found out this week that apparently you and your wife discovered Triumph, or the first version of Triumph, at some sort of knick-knack shop or antique store.

Yeah.

My wife and I, we were newlyweds, or actually, we were on, we were furniture shopping, and there was this, uh, quaint little store called Mabel's in, uh, Manhattan, and they had an even quainter rack of puppets, rubber puppets that were just animal heads.

You know, there were dogs and cats, and there was a sheep, and there was, you know, an owl.

So I just grabbed a dog head, and I was so amused by how realistic it looked that I put it on my hand and immediately sniffed my, uh, my, my wife's [beep] with it.

So, w- well, why don't, why don't you describe it?

Uh, so my m- my wife actually came up with this show.

It's called Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends, and every week we have people who've called in, left a message, and they need help with some sort of task they have.

... trying to be funny

...

it was just people like, you know, just guys who, uh, and girls who would watch these guys.

And we'd just come up with our own premises and, and work on them, and, um, develop them.

And I was a little more of a TV guy.

I had more TV parodies than Second City usually did, uh, just 'cause I was a, a TV nerd.

And, and-

Yeah

[laughs]

And, and the, there were live animals interacting with puppet cats and dogs.

And the puppeteers were under a three-foot stage, and they were just, you know, confined under there.

They had little holes where they could stick their puppet arms out.

And I guess the low point was when Dino Stamatopoulos, right?

Good to work with?

He was s- the most ex- you can't believe how excited he was to do Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler.

He treats every movie with absolute...

You know? Everybody should just, like, do whatever they want."

But that's like we could, we very much connected because we liked...

And doing, we liked doing impressions that were kind of abstract.

We liked creating abstract impressions.

And so, you know, Dana had some under his belt, obviously.

And then I tried to help him with, you know, Johnny Carson and Regis.

The Regis thing was very strange 'cause, like, I wrote it for Phil Hartman.

Yeah.