00:00:00.00
Talal K
podcast going live to studio over to you Alexi
00:00:05.78
alexei sayle
Hello everybody, welcome to episode 166... Bollocky fuck shit. Hello everybody.
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Anthony Atamanuik
I love that.
00:00:13.42
alexei sayle
That's good start. Hello everybody, welcome to episode 116 of the Alexis Hour podcast and increasing the global reach of our podcast via a Talal Chachouti collection
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Talal K
hey What's this? I'm not Hamas, why are you saying my name like that?
00:00:31.26
alexei sayle
with
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Anthony Atamanuik
ah
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alexei sayle
I was trying to think of a joke.
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Talal K
Chakuti.
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alexei sayle
i was i've written down I've written Hamas slash hummus.
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Talal K
Is this very...
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alexei sayle
Has anybody attempted to elide those two things?
00:00:42.42
Talal K
Ah. ah Yeah, I think Sorry.
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Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
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alexei sayle
of they Is that really obvious?
00:00:48.34
Talal K
Sorry.
00:00:48.54
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. I mean, ah it's ah ah there was a Trump joke I did, a hummus and chips ah joke, but I have to recall it.
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alexei sayle
Really? Right.
00:00:56.92
Anthony Atamanuik
But it's it's something about we need to stop hummus and all the and and the chips the chips act, which was a thing in the United States.
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alexei sayle
Right.
00:01:03.38
alexei sayle
right
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Anthony Atamanuik
Anyway.
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Talal K
chips act and in my in my act i have a song one of my most popular songs about hummus but it's an analogy it's an analogy for british imperialism and at one point in the song i talk about how you pronounce it and i say if you're israeli you pronounce it hummus um something like that so
00:01:06.10
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:01:12.18
alexei sayle
Let's see
00:01:24.86
alexei sayle
I should explain before we get any further. Our guest this afternoon, evening is Tony Atamanik, who said it right, who Talal was connected to and mentioned on the podcast the other the other week.
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Anthony Atamanuik
Brilliant.
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alexei sayle
And so we've got global reach now, people. We're hoping to open to leech off your social media presence, Tony, to...
00:01:53.21
Anthony Atamanuik
oh Good luck.
00:01:55.35
Talal K
you
00:01:55.41
alexei sayle
Hoover up. Get that get that um get the BlackRock advertising endorsement.
00:02:03.31
Talal K
Oh, yeah.
00:02:04.38
alexei sayle
we havent It's not that we object to advertising. It's just we've been holding out for the right, truly evil one. Anyway, I don't know where this is going. Anyway, so but ah Tony, Tony.
00:02:15.80
Talal K
Well, like a couple of weeks ago, we
00:02:19.58
Talal K
Well, a couple of weeks ago, we had Stuart Lee on and he asked us if we ever use any of our Kung Fu or meditation practices in our comedy. And I mentioned that, you know, route about 10 years ago, it feels like another life ago, um I went, I took part in a workshop called Mindfulness and Meditation in Improv.
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Anthony Atamanuik
Oh yeah.
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Talal K
And it was run by Tony Atamanik.
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Anthony Atamanuik
Oh yeah.
00:02:42.86
Talal K
is when there was a This is to make a short story long, by the way. There was a group of UCB teachers came over to London to teach some improv courses. And one of the workshops was this.
00:02:54.21
Talal K
And I sat in there and Tony taught us all how to focus on our chi whenever we were freezing up on stage or losing ourselves and then recentering yourself by focusing on your chi. And that that was the thing.
00:03:05.69
Talal K
And that stuck stuck with me and I still use it a lot. And ti yeah, man, since then, Tony's...
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Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, good. Yeah.
00:03:11.07
Talal K
ah He did like a world tour with Trump versus Bernie, yourself and James Odomian doing a Bernie Sanders impression.
00:03:18.58
Anthony Atamanuik
That's right.
00:03:20.70
Talal K
And that, that got so popular and it so fucking funny. These improvised presidential debates between yourself and Bernie or Trump and Bernie. And that got you picked up by Comedy Central and you had the president's show on Comedy Central.
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Anthony Atamanuik
Yes.
00:03:36.08
Talal K
Aside from that, you've worked on 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt and,
00:03:36.41
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes.
00:03:41.01
Talal K
You're just an amazing improviser. Oh, a bloody what we do in the shadows. You're regular on that.
00:03:44.60
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes, with my the Brits, with my fellow Brits, with with with Matt Berry, who I just spoke to the other day.
00:03:44.93
Talal K
You're the next door neighbor, I think. Yeah.
00:03:49.16
alexei sayle
Not very.
00:03:51.22
Talal K
And K-Van Novak.
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Anthony Atamanuik
um And K-Van, the great K-Van. Yes. And the meditation ah ah was. Yeah, I remember that. That is a great, I think, for improv.
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Anthony Atamanuik
That's it. Meditation is the only practice you could do outside of just doing it.
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Talal K
Wow. Okay.
00:04:10.64
Anthony Atamanuik
Like you can't really do, you can't really practice improv because it's making it up. So like, how can you practice making it up? but you you If you practiced it alone, that would be it. you If you did it again, you're now doing something preconceived.
00:04:24.15
Anthony Atamanuik
So mindfulness is the only exercise you can do for the brain, right? Because it's the thing of giving space. It's all just about building space to find funnier shit. It's not anything more hippie. It's not any more so sort of ethereal than that in my mind. It's just training your brain to have space.
00:04:42.45
Anthony Atamanuik
Right.
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Talal K
But you've made a lot of your living teaching improv with UCB. So is that all you teach in your classes as well? If you can't practice it outside of... Oh, right.
00:04:49.75
Anthony Atamanuik
ah When I used to teach near the end, yeah, I mean, I stopped pretty much after you guys.
00:04:51.48
Talal K
it
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Anthony Atamanuik
That was, yeah, because I got Trump and that was sort of it.
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Talal K
oh right
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Anthony Atamanuik
But like um I had a lot of people who took that course who ended up, you know, doing quite well in their careers. And i find that that was probably the best thing I ever taught was just the simplest thing, which was sitting quietly for 20 minutes and breathing and clearing your mind.
00:05:15.55
Talal K
Mm.
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Anthony Atamanuik
It turns out that was that was the the key the whole time. All the other shit you do. Because, right, because, i mean, doing comedy is sort of being shameless, right? i mean, you have to be shameless, which means you have to dissolve your ego in order to actually be funny, right?
00:05:31.38
Anthony Atamanuik
Because you have to be willing to sort of put yourself out in any way possible. I always feel comedy is about hiding in plain sight, letting letting lend it yourself show through through a character so people go, God, that's so funny.
00:05:46.47
Anthony Atamanuik
That's so funny. That character is so crazy. And you're like, oh, but that's actually, there's a little piece of me there who's Doing this, you know um But yeah, so ah i I did the Trump With James And we actually played the Leicester Square Theater We had Mark Hamill was our moderator That was a wild That was like a wild experience We went out to the to the Star Wars set And all that stuff with him um So I ended up making my hay for quite a while Doing that sort of um You know, and the the i I would say I'm not a
00:05:53.54
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:06:05.75
Talal K
oh yeah
00:06:11.93
Talal K
wow
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Anthony Atamanuik
you know I'm not going to be on BBC Two being a mainstream funny. i'm i'm i'm not you know i'm not I'm not someone who's ah ah maybe family friendly or whatever. So we try I tried to make my hay doing that.
00:06:40.22
Anthony Atamanuik
And ah yeah, and I mean, we're still actually, we have a podcast, sort of video podcast coming out where I'm playing RFK Jr., But the take on that is really the toxic culture of of bro podcasting that was the sort of feed stop for all the politicians prior to the election.
00:06:49.40
Talal K
Yes.
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alexei sayle
Yeah.
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Anthony Atamanuik
And I assume you have that over there as well, which is there's this sort of new sort of ecosystem of, you know, kissing the ring or dinging the bell for these this new form of, you know, I don't know if it's a new form of male comic, but I think it's a new it's a new ah actualization of um that type of podcaster where they don't really have any stake in the game. Right. They can kind of go, well, I don't know what I'm talking about. So whatever I endorse, whatever I put forward, it doesn't matter. I'm actually Teflon. I'm not connected to it.
00:07:36.02
Anthony Atamanuik
You saw that in the States in the run up to the election, which is between Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and ah Andrew Schultz, all these figures in the U.S. who are these sort of pod bros.
00:07:47.22
Anthony Atamanuik
they all ushered Trump through or RFK or whoever. And um they were able to sort of have fun.
00:07:51.16
Talal K
Yeah.
00:07:54.71
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think often sometimes having fun, maybe even at Trump's expense. Right. But ah ultimately they were um advancing him without any challenge.
00:08:06.94
Anthony Atamanuik
ah And, you know, that that ah ecosystem was where ah RFK really lived. So we thought, well, what if we did a government podcast that was in the style of a bro podcast?
00:08:17.72
Anthony Atamanuik
And so it's.
00:08:18.71
Talal K
And that's with Adomian being Elon Musk as well, isn't it?
00:08:21.82
Anthony Atamanuik
ah Well, a domain will guess is Elon Musk. i actually have a friend of mine, Gil Azari, who's a very funny writer.
00:08:26.82
Talal K
I fucking love Gil, yeah.
00:08:27.74
Anthony Atamanuik
ah and Gil, you know, writes for a lot of shows, including Big Mouth and stuff. So he's playing a sort of hybrid of all the other bro podcasters. And then I will be our. So and I mean, we've done one so far, but. like a pilot, but we're about to start.
00:08:44.02
Anthony Atamanuik
and I think the idea is that we never really get to science or health advice or any government. it'ss It's always diverting into UFOlogy or supplements or you know whatever other garbage.
00:08:56.57
Anthony Atamanuik
you know i mean, we're a garbage heap over here, but I feel like that disease is spreading now to everywhere.
00:09:03.22
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Do we have bro podcasters here? I don't know. I'm,
00:09:07.38
Talal K
It's not in the same vein, but there are those like apolitical laddie podcasts and they are they are very, very popular. i'm I'm not in that sphere, so I'm not in touch in tune with it, but you do see the clips going around and they have a lot of views. And so you do have these kind of yeah apolitical laddie guys who just chat shit and and they're funny. the The clips I see are funny, but then...
00:09:30.29
Talal K
ah When it just, don't know, over the last few years, I've felt betrayed by anyone who has a platform and doesn't at least like signpost there their politics a little bit because the stakes are so fucking high at the moment and everything seems to matter so much more.
00:09:45.73
Talal K
It's not the 90s where nothing matters. It doesn't feel like that anymore.
00:09:48.18
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:09:49.14
alexei sayle
know
00:09:49.53
Talal K
you know I don't like seeing people just laughing for the sake. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.
00:09:54.04
Anthony Atamanuik
But don't you think...
00:09:54.04
alexei sayle
I only listened to, okay, I was going to say and I only listened to the radio.
00:09:54.17
Talal K
What do you think?
00:09:55.73
Anthony Atamanuik
No, no, go on, sorry.
00:09:58.16
alexei sayle
And the radio, there was ah an inventor in Britain, this has got nothing to do with but an inventor about 20 years ago or 30 years ago was celebrating because he invented this clockwork radio for people in Africa so you could wind it up.
00:10:14.26
alexei sayle
and then listen to the radio for half an hour. But it it made so much noise, kind of unwinding, that it was really impossible to listen to. it But it seemed a bit patronised anyway, really.
00:10:26.58
alexei sayle
And it was celebrated at the time, though, Clockwork Radio. That's so that's all I listen to, really, is a wind-up Clockwork Radio that brings me the news from a happier time.
00:10:39.51
Anthony Atamanuik
ah Don't you listen to news from the past?
00:10:41.24
alexei sayle
Sorry. any ah Yeah.
00:10:43.13
Anthony Atamanuik
you That's...
00:10:43.65
alexei sayle
Yeah. i Yeah. yeah
00:10:45.59
Anthony Atamanuik
I thought about doing that.
00:10:45.53
alexei sayle
please
00:10:46.67
Anthony Atamanuik
I thought about recreate. What would it be like to we have enough ability now you could recreate a programming day right from another year. So you could sort of just immerse yourself in a whole other time.
00:10:54.68
Talal K
Mm-hmm.
00:10:56.73
alexei sayle
yeah
00:10:57.90
Anthony Atamanuik
You could just set a whole day up of news broadcasts, the programming of one night and just sort of take yourself out, which.
00:11:03.67
alexei sayle
yeah
00:11:06.37
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, I mean, I don't listen to any. This is the word. I don't really watch a lot of comedy. And I don't really listen. I actually listen to very little. I read like news, but I i can't get into this world. I can't.
00:11:22.74
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm I it's been ah um very hard to stay connected to this ah new world that we live in because it's too much overwhelming crap, you know.
00:11:35.75
alexei sayle
ahs yeah Yeah, it certainly seems like that. it's So tell us how you, um we'll get back to the world of crapping, but um how did you get started?
00:11:43.35
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes.
00:11:46.00
alexei sayle
Your father's Ukrainian, that's that your surname is Ukrainian.
00:11:48.63
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh yeah. So my dad's, uh, I'm a child of an immigrant, a Canadian immigrant. Uh, my dad, my father, uh, was my, so my great, my grandmother and her sister, the sisters, they came over from Ukraine.
00:12:04.63
Anthony Atamanuik
I mean, to Saskatchewan sometime in probably the late 19th century, my great grandparents did. Uh, so they've been in Canada all through 20th Uh,
00:12:16.41
alexei sayle
So your dad hasn't gone all patriotic with... Yeah.
00:12:19.06
Anthony Atamanuik
No, you know, my aunt and my dad, i think when the first thing happened with Ukraine, i mean, here's the thing. my Yeah, my parents had, like my my dad, my aunt had this sort of Ukraine thing. I sort of, you know, was like, oh, I guess the CIA operation finally failed over in the Ukraine. Yeah.
00:12:37.67
Talal K
Thank you.
00:12:37.75
alexei sayle
yeah
00:12:38.49
Anthony Atamanuik
You know, I don't I look at it and go, this has been what was 20. 2006 2022. Right. Was this sort of like money laundering operation that was going on?
00:12:49.29
Anthony Atamanuik
You know, we were we did the or we spiked the Orange Revolution in order to try to crumble the the, you know, all of this being clean up for our failure during the Soviet collapse.
00:12:49.46
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:12:58.65
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:13:02.68
Anthony Atamanuik
But anyway, um Yeah, so they so they were not... I don't know if they're that patriotic. my My dad's more patriotic about Canada. i mean, Canadians are very into Canada.
00:13:14.16
Anthony Atamanuik
And...
00:13:14.87
alexei sayle
Now or just always ready.
00:13:17.05
Anthony Atamanuik
Always. ah You know, i I find it funny because a lot of times, you know, Canadians will sort of be like, oh, America, you know, America is really crass or whatever. But I'll be like, you guys are just as sort of nationalistic and, you know, engage you're just like, you know, socialist.
00:13:25.91
alexei sayle
yeah
00:13:32.67
Anthony Atamanuik
So you're a little better ah maybe than we are. But. um But yeah, so my dad played ah music. he He started playing in you know bands ah at 16, and he ended up playing with a number of popular bands in Canada and ended up ah actually George Martin, who produced the Beatles, produced a band called...
00:13:56.96
Anthony Atamanuik
C train after the Beatles broke up and with a guy named Peter Rowan and other folks. And so my dad joined that band. And so that was about three years of touring. And then he got with my mom, who was ah ah doing a national touring company of hair. She was a dancer.
00:14:13.85
Anthony Atamanuik
And ah so they got together and then, you know, got a little too wild.
00:14:13.92
Talal K
Wow.
00:14:18.93
Anthony Atamanuik
And then I showed up. ah And so ah much to their chagrin. And so then there was six years of questioning what the hell they did until they split. And ah and then, yeah, then my dad ah moved on to ah ah end up performing with Emmylou Harris and he performed with the, you know,
00:14:42.23
Anthony Atamanuik
Dolly Parton. He plays mostly ah bluegrass music. He can play blues and rock and the whole nine, but he he primarily stays within bluegrass.
00:14:46.75
alexei sayle
All right.
00:14:51.23
Anthony Atamanuik
um And he's known for his brushwork. He's like a very, very delicate brush guy. ah So, yeah.
00:14:58.29
alexei sayle
Yeah,
00:14:58.80
Anthony Atamanuik
So I probably learned a lot from my dad about that.
00:14:58.74
Talal K
like a brush like on the drums a brush right okay i'm clarifying for the listener you fuckhead
00:15:02.33
alexei sayle
yeah, of course on the drums, you fucking idiot.
00:15:03.19
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah My dad's one of the few drummers who does foot painting while he, yeah, yeah yeah he's a great, yeah, he's a cleaning.
00:15:10.90
alexei sayle
Now he keeps the place clean.
00:15:15.45
Talal K
he cleans the studio when everyone's done yeah and there you go
00:15:16.70
Anthony Atamanuik
you know what's funny? He did work as a house painter and he also did work as a housekeeper at one point.
00:15:20.93
alexei sayle
I mean, I think it was amazing at that too.
00:15:21.62
Anthony Atamanuik
So he actually was an amazing brush man in those areas too. Yeah.
00:15:27.00
alexei sayle
ah so you brought up in Canada? All right.
00:15:29.53
Anthony Atamanuik
I would spend my summers there. I'd go there for vacation. So I'd split my.
00:15:32.24
alexei sayle
Because I always think of Canadians as being kind of like Belgians to the the United States, you know belgians Belgians to France is Canadians to the United States, really, that all the great heroes of French culture are, in fact, Belgian.
00:15:38.20
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes.
00:15:41.41
Talal K
Yeah.
00:15:42.17
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:15:46.87
alexei sayle
All of them
00:15:48.28
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, that's true.
00:15:49.11
alexei sayle
And same is true of Canada.
00:15:49.34
Anthony Atamanuik
no It is. Most of our celebrities in the States are Canadian, you know, and you know, if they, what they say, if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium.
00:15:54.10
Talal K
yeah
00:15:54.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:15:57.54
Anthony Atamanuik
So
00:15:58.17
alexei sayle
but Interesting movie.
00:16:01.50
Anthony Atamanuik
yeah, yeah.
00:16:02.23
alexei sayle
Yeah, critique of US insularity.
00:16:02.38
Anthony Atamanuik
Great movie.
00:16:07.13
alexei sayle
So how did you get, so tell me, let's chart your route through the, um how'd you get, um well, and actually, what was working on Dirty Rock like? I mean, one of the greatest comedy shows of all time, I think.
00:16:19.80
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, man. Well, I mean, I was ah at that point, I was a pretty small cog in the machine at 30 Rock. But fortunately, i knew Tina, ah you know, from my days of improvising a theater.
00:16:30.78
Anthony Atamanuik
So I was ah playing one of the writers in the room. But I think I spoke one time in six years. um
00:16:37.24
alexei sayle
Right.
00:16:38.30
Anthony Atamanuik
But ah that was a that was an amazing show to work on. i feel like I went to college for film theory and and I never really, you know, I never did any.
00:16:49.40
Anthony Atamanuik
practical work, though. I was always doing film theory and then doing comedy. And I would say that 30 Rock was like graduate school and how to do TV.
00:16:54.20
Talal K
Yeah.
00:16:58.52
Anthony Atamanuik
Like it was just like you learned everything about how to be on a set, how to deal with people and how to keep a production moving. We worked with so many great people. Alec Baldwin, who ended up also doing a Trump, which I think the irony of two people working on the same show who both did notable Trumps in the same year and then had a public fight about it would be would be the strange course that that took.
00:17:11.58
Talal K
yeah
00:17:23.98
alexei sayle
Your Trump's had a public fight.
00:17:26.20
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. oh al I mean, and Alec was, you know, it's interesting. Alec. I don't think there was a person. Alec, ah Jane Krakowski, Tracy.
00:17:38.01
Anthony Atamanuik
ah It was, I think, pretty rare is a very familial character.
00:17:42.71
alexei sayle
Oh, nice. Yeah.
00:17:43.54
Anthony Atamanuik
ah experience. Everybody was very supportive. You know, I mean, before Alec and I didn't really talk much, he would come and see shows. He'd come and see a show you do ah locally. It was a very wonderful group of people and it spawned all these really talented people who ended up going on to make other shows.
00:18:04.18
Anthony Atamanuik
And I was very grateful for it because it got me out of a pizza restaurant I was working at while I was, you know, while I was doing improv.
00:18:10.20
alexei sayle
So did you play a writer and also function as a writer?
00:18:13.66
Anthony Atamanuik
no Well, I played a writer and I did punch up.
00:18:16.63
alexei sayle
Right.
00:18:16.78
Anthony Atamanuik
I was never hired officially as a writer on that show. And then when later on, um Tina would show.
00:18:22.36
alexei sayle
Explain what pawnship is to those people that don't know what it is.
00:18:27.48
Anthony Atamanuik
ah well You know, when I went to do Tracy Allman's show in UK, that was interesting because Punch Up Punch Up is just basically you take the script and you're, you know, ah giving alternative jokes or giving little shifts or changes. Right. For the view for the listening audience. And I found it was interesting when we did it for Tracy's show in the UK.
00:18:53.30
Anthony Atamanuik
um that it was a more involved, like I was coming in to play Trump, but they had me come in and like really work on my part of it. So it almost felt like writing ah whole segments of it, which I thought was very cool.
00:19:06.90
Anthony Atamanuik
Like normally, Punch Up is more like um almost like a sub focus group of writers where you bring the writers in, they read the script, they give notes, and then that stuff gets brought over to the people who wrote it.
00:19:16.70
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:19:17.72
Anthony Atamanuik
So it's a different experience over there.
00:19:21.20
alexei sayle
I mean, Tina Fey must be... I mean, obviously, she's very self-deprecating on that show, but she must have... I mean, what quality was it that matt got her to be writer on Saturday Night Live?
00:19:35.83
alexei sayle
I mean,
00:19:37.02
Anthony Atamanuik
I think that from my experience of Tina, the quality is that she is a completely authentic. um She is who she is. She is exactly who she is. She's not putting on in any way. And um she's hyper intelligent and all about the work. i mean, if there's any lesson I learned from her, it's like when you're making something, you're You need to know every part of it.
00:20:01.78
Anthony Atamanuik
Right. So her investment, I think, had to do. And also, I think that you have to be able to kill your darlings, right? You have to kill your babies constantly.
00:20:08.70
alexei sayle
Right. Right.
00:20:09.45
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think she was really good at killing. ah great, ah you know, really funny ideas to hone the best, most funny idea.
00:20:18.33
alexei sayle
right
00:20:18.46
Anthony Atamanuik
And she knew how to. And also, ah this is, I imagine, from SNL because i I only auditioned there and I would go there to watch a lot of friends on it. But I was never in that. But that i that place is apparently a ah meat grinder.
00:20:31.38
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think that one thing in my experience of being ah on a 30 rock was that there's no one was precious, like the biggest lead and the smallest person.
00:20:44.02
Anthony Atamanuik
If someone had an idea, then that idea was valuable. Right. So I feel like that's a good quality to have when you're especially comedy is collaboration.
00:20:48.39
alexei sayle
Right.
00:20:56.70
Anthony Atamanuik
So like, especially in comedy, to be precious is like, my God, like you're killing it. You're strangling it. If you're being precious, you know, now I feel like 90% of the time what happens is, is, ah you know, a combination of preplan of, of your planning and then whatever stuff presents itself.
00:21:07.58
Talal K
Right.
00:21:18.29
Anthony Atamanuik
So yeah, I think that was her skill.
00:21:18.94
alexei sayle
that's why poets are no good you know they won't change a word poets they're very precious
00:21:23.67
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. Poets are, well, that's one of the reasons why there there's so few of them now we've almost hunted them all down.
00:21:28.34
alexei sayle
yeah a lot of people call themselves poets very few good ones
00:21:34.78
Anthony Atamanuik
I tried. I used to try, you know what I, this, you know, this in comedy, right? One of the best things about comedy is you get to wear hats that you would not, that you want to wear, but you wouldn't want to actually wear as like a serious hat.
00:21:48.98
Anthony Atamanuik
So I used to do ah live shows where I would be Robert Frost. just so I could write poems. Right. You know, but I was like filthy Robert Frost because I read this thing about how Robert Frost was actually a disgusting perv. And so I would write these like I would rewrite his poems to be sort of like filthy and ribald.
00:22:07.90
Anthony Atamanuik
And, ah ah you know, I think that's a way to disguise your ah your ambitions.
00:22:10.51
Talal K
That's great.
00:22:14.50
Anthony Atamanuik
Right.
00:22:15.42
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:16.06
Talal K
Absolutely. you get
00:22:16.92
alexei sayle
Well, where would where would you do these shows?
00:22:20.34
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, at UCB downtown. So there was, they opened one on the east side called.
00:22:22.03
alexei sayle
It says University College Boston, is it?
00:22:25.56
Talal K
No, Upright Citizens Brigade.
00:22:26.17
Anthony Atamanuik
No, no, this no upright sisters brigade.
00:22:26.90
alexei sayle
No. What's it called? operation I said, oh, God, that I thought I knew something for certain because you told me that you were in Boston. and I thought, Aubrey.
00:22:35.10
Talal K
Let me just say, let me before we...
00:22:36.25
Anthony Atamanuik
I was in New York that whole time. Yeah.
00:22:38.78
Talal K
We'll will ah explain UCB, but I need to let Tony know that Alexi hates improv.
00:22:38.79
alexei sayle
Aubrey.
00:22:44.82
Talal K
and ah And probably most of our listeners hate improv too.
00:22:45.18
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, good.
00:22:48.18
Talal K
And whenever i whenever I bring it up, it gets a big scoff from Alexi.
00:22:48.39
Anthony Atamanuik
That's fine.
00:22:51.58
Talal K
But I got into improv because of my love of American improvisers and the way they do it over there. Like there is very little good improv in the UK. It has to be said. Apart from my team, of course, the Bazaar.
00:23:02.68
Talal K
We're playing Shore and Rope Tackle next week, actually. I'll get to that later. um but ah ah But American improvisers, America has the UCB, which is such a big boon.
00:23:12.95
Talal K
And American improvisers have gone on, like Tony and his peers, to become some of the best character actors and character comedians and that around the world, like Andy Daly and yourself and Tina Fey.
00:23:22.58
Anthony Atamanuik
But I, yeah.
00:23:25.11
Talal K
Yeah.
00:23:25.59
Anthony Atamanuik
I would like to weigh in, though, and say I also hate improv.
00:23:28.76
Anthony Atamanuik
I want to weigh in and say that most improv is terrible.
00:23:28.89
Talal K
Yeah.
00:23:34.23
Talal K
Yes, it's true.
00:23:35.13
Anthony Atamanuik
OK. And most American improv is terrible.
00:23:38.39
Talal K
Okay.
00:23:38.68
Anthony Atamanuik
And there is a certain point at which doing the art of that work on stage is you're running over the same territory. You you cannot escape the idea of doing it.
00:23:51.13
Anthony Atamanuik
I think initially is you need to pursue a performance avenue and whatever one gets you the most comfortable to pursue a performance avenue, you should do stand up, improv, whatever. If you're if that's your desire to express.
00:24:04.70
Anthony Atamanuik
But the show I'm talking about, for instance, of the UCB East, that was not that was all sketch. None of that was i mean, even all the Trump Bernie, it started out sort of like the first few we were working it out on stage, but then it was the script.
00:24:20.02
Anthony Atamanuik
And then we would go off of it. um
00:24:22.07
alexei sayle
Right.
00:24:22.32
Talal K
Right.
00:24:22.90
Anthony Atamanuik
I was lucky in the fact that I was in a good band. Basically, I was in a group called Death by Ruru in New York, and we were really, really good. There was probably one percent.
00:24:35.50
Anthony Atamanuik
I'll be smug. We were like the one percent of what was good. What was good.
00:24:40.20
Talal K
Hmm.
00:24:40.57
Anthony Atamanuik
And um even then, everyone was always aiming, everyone's aiming to write something and to make something because improv is ephemeral.
00:24:41.85
Talal K
Same, same.
00:24:50.65
Anthony Atamanuik
It goes away.
00:24:52.36
Talal K
Mm-hmm.
00:24:52.57
Anthony Atamanuik
And also, i think... ah As time moves on, people, the audience feels this sort of Disney desire to have some sort of participation in the work. And I have no interest in having a bunch of slack jawed morons be involved in the work I'm doing. I'm doing my work because I worked hard to do it, not for you, the audience, to be involved in it.
00:25:15.80
Anthony Atamanuik
Your involvement is to observe it and react to it.
00:25:18.33
alexei sayle
Yeah, shut up.
00:25:19.61
Anthony Atamanuik
And that's it.
00:25:19.55
alexei sayle
I'm fucking laughing. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:21.21
Anthony Atamanuik
Fuck that. So like so what I would say is like, yeah, we used to do a show.
00:25:22.14
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:25:26.05
Anthony Atamanuik
i mean, in this sense, this is how improv helped. We used to do a show called ah Too Soon and every ah Tuesday, one Tuesday a month, if something tragic happened, I would do it that day.
00:25:38.29
Anthony Atamanuik
OK, so, you know, and it wouldn't matter what it was. I mean, one of them was very stupid, but it was ah Shirley Temple died. So that day I had her shooting heroin in purgatory with Phyllis Seymour Hoffman.
00:25:48.90
Anthony Atamanuik
And they were singing anything I could do, you could do better. And her thing was that she shot heroin into her clitoris.
00:25:52.38
Talal K
Jesus Jesus Christ.
00:25:52.65
alexei sayle
Okay.
00:25:54.54
Anthony Atamanuik
And that's how she that's how she beat.
00:25:55.67
Talal K
Hmm. just fucking cry
00:25:57.48
Anthony Atamanuik
That's how she beat Philip Seymour Hoff.
00:25:59.74
alexei sayle
but
00:26:00.73
Anthony Atamanuik
So like and so, you know, i am a I'm a firm believer in um in exiting the gravitational pull of improv, which is simply like a It's always a great space to be in to do to work things out and to work and to keep your mind sharp and to be able to do that high wire act and actually be entertaining.
00:26:24.57
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. But ah concrete exploration is important. Right.
00:26:29.53
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:26:29.76
Anthony Atamanuik
Like that's where it's really that's where it's really about because that's how you're refining whatever the fuck it is to do comedy.
00:26:35.23
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:26:36.65
Anthony Atamanuik
Right. Like whatever it is, whatever that meaning is. Right. You know, i mean, we're, we're, you know, we're almost on the poet's level in terms of being hunted down and destroyed.
00:26:47.62
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:26:49.50
Anthony Atamanuik
so you know,
00:26:49.88
Talal K
that good Well, when i met when I met you all those years ago, I was deep in the scene of improv.
00:26:51.22
alexei sayle
yeah
00:26:54.84
Talal K
And then I got then i got out of it and did stand up and then I recently got the call back couple of years ago.
00:26:55.13
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, I know. Yeah.
00:27:03.10
Talal K
ah My friend was putting together the first Middle East and North African improv team and asked me to be in it.
00:27:03.35
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:27:08.25
Anthony Atamanuik
Well, that's, But that's worth it, too, because that's also like improv.
00:27:09.85
Talal K
And
00:27:12.82
Anthony Atamanuik
Let's be honest about why improv is so boring, because how many white men can stand around and talk?
00:27:19.51
Talal K
Yeah.
00:27:20.34
Anthony Atamanuik
How many white men? How many? how How much of that can you watch? I mean, we saw the State of the Union. It's the same. bull And I'm not being like wokey. I'm saying like just straight up. I taught it.
00:27:30.98
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm a white man. I taught it for a long time. I was tired of hearing.
00:27:33.31
Talal K
Yeah.
00:27:35.38
Anthony Atamanuik
the same shit over and over and over and over again.
00:27:36.47
Talal K
Yeah. no
00:27:38.50
Anthony Atamanuik
And you look at the State of the Union, who are the three people spoke up? A black guy, Sudanese, ah ah a Pakistani woman and a Somali woman.
00:27:50.42
Anthony Atamanuik
Those are the three people who actually spoke up while the rest of those lumps sat.
00:27:53.37
Talal K
Oh, like heckled Trump.
00:27:55.40
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, the rest of those lumps sat there and took it for two hours.
00:27:55.96
Talal K
Yeah.
00:28:00.44
Anthony Atamanuik
And I don't know what decorum they're showing. by By sitting there and taking it. But... Yeah.
00:28:07.06
alexei sayle
Apparently the Democrats also occasionally stood, like when he crowed about releasing the hostages and, you know, ah they all stood up and applauded then, apparently.
00:28:14.09
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:28:17.72
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, that was the one time.
00:28:19.26
alexei sayle
Yeah, apparently.
00:28:19.93
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:20.50
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:22.97
Anthony Atamanuik
I mean, that's, you know, I know you say you guys get political, but like that's the dark, that's the dark shit to me.
00:28:23.13
Talal K
yeah
00:28:29.34
Anthony Atamanuik
Everyone goes Trump, Trump, Trump, and I go, wow. The Democratic Party is the great failure in this country.
00:28:34.87
alexei sayle
i Yeah, I mean, yeah, I agree, really. I mean, I just, um yeah, I mean, Biden, I mean, yeah, like the Labour Party here, you're very true.
00:28:40.02
Talal K
yeah like the Labour Party here
00:28:44.06
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:45.62
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:45.75
alexei sayle
mean, Biden, in a way, seems like a much more evil old man than Trump, always, to me.
00:28:50.58
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, well, if you think, yeah, because that's banality of evil, right?
00:28:54.52
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.
00:28:55.10
Anthony Atamanuik
That's that's the fact that you allowed a war, you you know, you you passively supported and funneled billions of dollars into a war in east Eastern Europe ah with no sort of game plan, right?
00:29:10.32
Anthony Atamanuik
Because you're really laundering money. You went right along with Bibby and the horror that was executed ah for the last two years um in response to horror, but it's all horror.
00:29:12.47
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:29:22.76
Talal K
Mm-hmm.
00:29:26.20
Anthony Atamanuik
So and in and in addition, you had those Epstein files for four years. You didn't do anything about them.
00:29:33.91
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, that's, yeah, absolutely. that's They're all sanctimonious about, you know, the fact that Trump appears in it. But, yeah, at least he'd release the fucking things, which is not what, yeah. They've been sitting on them, as you say, for four years.
00:29:44.04
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:29:46.58
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. All I know is Bernie Sanders would have finished his second term in 2024.
00:29:53.66
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:29:53.94
Anthony Atamanuik
He would, he would, we would have, we would be probably looking at single payer in this country or some form of Medicare for all.
00:29:53.93
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:30:00.00
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:30:01.10
Anthony Atamanuik
And, um, whatever this cancer is that grew in this country, which was necessary. I mean, everyone, everyone, I'll tell you my truth. My truth is this.
00:30:12.15
Anthony Atamanuik
and If you lived in this country you know growing up as I did, none of this is surprising. not trump The people who pretend that this is surprising, I mean, it's it's it's laughable.
00:30:22.26
Talal K
Mm-hmm.
00:30:26.46
Anthony Atamanuik
It's just laughable. the the the you know We made this bed, we put this guy here, and all parties involved were fine with it.
00:30:37.69
Anthony Atamanuik
Everybody was fine with it.
00:30:39.67
alexei sayle
Can just expand a bit on that? I mean, it's not surprising because...
00:30:43.79
Anthony Atamanuik
It's not surprising because we ah I personally believe you can i mean, you can continually trace it back and back and back. Right. So but we have to create sort of a false start point. So if we just look at the start point of like the mid 60s, when Democrats were using the black church movement in order to foster social justice change. Right.
00:31:05.66
Anthony Atamanuik
And so in the 70s, the right says, you know, you know we should probably start fostering evangelical um ah religious ah ah support. so So you have two political parties that start diving into the churches in order to turn out bases that will deliver votes for them.
00:31:28.60
alexei sayle
Right.
00:31:28.73
Anthony Atamanuik
And that, in turn, The mega church model in the United States, this very particular thing, which i don't know if you remember that Andy Kaufman movie ah with Marty Feldman from the 70s, where he was this um preacher.
00:31:44.20
Anthony Atamanuik
God, i can't remember the name of it, but it's like a real it's a real wild.
00:31:45.91
alexei sayle
No.
00:31:47.80
Anthony Atamanuik
You know, there's a lot of takes that happen in the the seventy s that.
00:31:50.90
Talal K
In God We Trust, 1980. Mm-hmm.
00:31:52.44
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes, and God we trust. Yeah, in 1980. Yeah. so ah So what you see over the course of the 80s and and um Reagan's election is this ah ah this erasure of our, this this sort of papering over of our history in in light of the Soviet, the quote unquote Soviet threat, which was a fiction that was invented for the election, right?
00:32:17.94
Anthony Atamanuik
And, you know, we can go back and go Carter's the one who got us involved in Afghanistan, not not Reagan. Right. So anyway, I'm going all over the map.
00:32:25.36
alexei sayle
Not Jimmy Carter!
00:32:25.86
Anthony Atamanuik
Just yeah, I know. Not Jimmy Carter.
00:32:27.83
alexei sayle
ah
00:32:28.41
Anthony Atamanuik
Right.
00:32:28.60
alexei sayle
No!
00:32:29.01
Anthony Atamanuik
I actually have I have it somewhere.
00:32:29.82
alexei sayle
No!
00:32:31.58
Anthony Atamanuik
I have a socialist pamphlet from 1978 going get out of Carter's get out of Carter's Afghanistan. It's amazing.
00:32:39.13
Talal K
Whoa.
00:32:39.93
alexei sayle
Oh,
00:32:41.18
Anthony Atamanuik
No, not Jimmy.
00:32:43.19
alexei sayle
He's a good man.
00:32:45.19
Anthony Atamanuik
So the United States.
00:32:46.07
Talal K
Please carry on. I got someone at the door. Please carry on.
00:32:48.18
Anthony Atamanuik
no So the.
00:32:49.14
alexei sayle
um We can't always go wild together, on.
00:32:51.64
Anthony Atamanuik
So the U.S. So in my opinion, now you as growing media ecosystem started to give us late night infomercials, performative talk shows, right. All seeding also this evangelical religious sort of undertone that was happening ah in the 80s that flowers in the ninety s you see a ah you see a purposeful,
00:33:20.85
Anthony Atamanuik
Unseriousness in politics, right? Like an unseriousness in all areas. We want to make everyone accessible. We want to make Bill Clinton play sax, right? So that everyone will think he's a regular guy.
00:33:30.65
alexei sayle
Yeah. yeah
00:33:33.24
Anthony Atamanuik
And um I think that was by design. It was by design to make politics seem unserious and to make our public welfare seem unimportant and to put everything on the same playing field as entertainment.
00:33:47.22
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think that was purposeful personally. And so by the time and and the Democrats in the meanwhile, they you know, they never have gotten over the contract with America with Newt Gingrich.
00:34:02.12
Anthony Atamanuik
So Newt Gingrich, you know, has this massive defeat in 94 that I mean, victory in 94 that defeats the Democrats and changes the in the lesson learned from the centrist Clintons.
00:34:14.14
Anthony Atamanuik
ah is, oh, you know, we need to tack to the center, to the right.
00:34:18.46
alexei sayle
Right, same.
00:34:18.94
Anthony Atamanuik
And that lesson has never, ever, ever been undone.
00:34:19.65
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:34:23.26
Anthony Atamanuik
Democrats are still running like it's 1994. But again, i at this point, look at all these things as strategies for power, not as real governing.
00:34:33.88
Anthony Atamanuik
These are just simply strategies for power, to retain power, to fill your coffers, because we live in corporate fuelism.
00:34:39.54
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:34:41.62
Anthony Atamanuik
i mean, you know,
00:34:41.78
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:34:43.26
Anthony Atamanuik
I think, yeah.
00:34:43.48
alexei sayle
I mean, do you think they, I mean, do you think, I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, I mean, the reason I hate in a sense the Labour Party more than any it and the Democrats as well is that they, I mean, at least the, the conservatives or reform just exist to be pure evil.
00:34:55.98
alexei sayle
Whereas the Labour Party or the Democrats, ah you know, exist to create people's better instincts and divert them into, you know,
00:34:56.65
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes.
00:35:04.51
alexei sayle
endless pointless meetings or you know just you know the vacuity of of the democrats in the states empty empty gestures and hand wringing and stuff like that and i've forgotten the point that i was making yeah yeah
00:35:14.01
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:35:18.74
Anthony Atamanuik
I think that you made the point, which is that they are they are a sinkhole, whereas at least, you know, i i remember I went on CNN in 2015 or right early 2016, and they had us come on as Trump and Bernie, right?
00:35:22.94
alexei sayle
yeah
00:35:32.98
Anthony Atamanuik
So we were sitting there doing this hit as Trump and Bernie. But I wanted to get something out on there. So at one point I just turned and I go, you know white supremacists love me. You know, I'm very, and I mean, this hostess was like, what?
00:35:47.54
alexei sayle
This is just Trump. Yeah.
00:35:49.53
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. And and she went, oh, no, no, no. And she sort you know, you got the like, OK, OK, we got to shut this kind of thing thing off.
00:35:55.95
alexei sayle
Right.
00:35:56.17
Anthony Atamanuik
And I got ah I spat a little more out before before they ended it I think I might have been one of the first people to just say he was a white supremacist.
00:36:04.49
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:36:04.66
Anthony Atamanuik
But again, you could roll it back to the 80s that when people go this country, this isn't us.
00:36:05.46
alexei sayle
yeah
00:36:11.02
Anthony Atamanuik
This is this is us. we We were a country that built was built by enslaved people that then we fucking Like shat on for the entirety afterwards.
00:36:21.18
Talal K
Yeah.
00:36:23.25
Anthony Atamanuik
What in, we are in, we're a country where it, we celebrated an interracial McDonald's commercial in like 2015. What are you talking about?
00:36:33.65
Talal K
Yeah. A country stolen from brown people as well, who were treated like animals.
00:36:36.63
alexei sayle
ah ah
00:36:37.46
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah,
00:36:38.24
Talal K
Yeah.
00:36:39.61
Anthony Atamanuik
it's wild.
00:36:39.63
alexei sayle
What's it?
00:36:39.75
Talal K
It's wild, yeah.
00:36:40.44
alexei sayle
Yeah. So what's what's the comedy scene like over there? What's it like being a... a comedian i don't I mean, I don't know very little about how it kind of breaks down. I mean, can the people do like, because I think sometimes ah a big American star comes to Edinburgh, to the Edinburgh Festival, and then does like 20 minutes because a lot of American comedians aren't used to doing like, i mean, when I used to tour, I'd do like an hour, an hour and a half, you know, in a theater and just be me.
00:37:09.27
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:37:09.37
alexei sayle
And seemingly Stewart does like two hours or something in a theater. But I think a lot of US comics aren't used to that. Or is my information out date? All
00:37:17.43
Anthony Atamanuik
No, I think you're right.
00:37:17.63
Talal K
I
00:37:18.35
Anthony Atamanuik
I think a lot, I think that standup in particular in the States has gone through a number of permutations. I think you had a period of storytelling standup that sort of happened in the early aughts where Mike Birbiglia is someone you might've heard of.
00:37:34.45
Anthony Atamanuik
He's sort of of that ilk of like the storytelling artist.
00:37:37.85
Talal K
i was like, sleepwalk with me.
00:37:37.88
alexei sayle
right.
00:37:38.38
Anthony Atamanuik
And
00:37:39.57
Talal K
Was that him?
00:37:39.83
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes, and I think a lot of British performance is more like that.
00:37:40.69
Talal K
Yeah.
00:37:43.47
Anthony Atamanuik
I think it's more... kind it's more ah um Well, I mean, not really true, because who's that one... Who's that guy who's the... I did a show with him one time.
00:37:55.43
Anthony Atamanuik
He's very he's very kind of this, and he's he's always...
00:37:57.85
Talal K
Michael McIntyre.
00:37:59.10
Anthony Atamanuik
No, no, he's um he's got a I can't believe him.
00:37:59.73
alexei sayle
Now.
00:38:02.17
Talal K
That head movement.
00:38:03.73
Anthony Atamanuik
I can't. He's he's very. um oh He laughs like that. And he does a lot of crowd work and he's very spiffy.
00:38:10.90
alexei sayle
Jimmy Carr.
00:38:12.09
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes, that's the one.
00:38:12.98
alexei sayle
Fuck, he did the show with Jimmy Carr.
00:38:15.00
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, I did. I beat Jimmy Carr. i beat fucking Carr. Mopped the floor with him in some comedy joke thing that we, on Comedy Central.
00:38:21.02
alexei sayle
Really? And we're good for you.
00:38:23.00
Anthony Atamanuik
oh I was thrilled. And he was very polite at the end, of course.
00:38:24.54
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:38:26.96
Anthony Atamanuik
you know He was like, it was like good a good job.
00:38:27.38
alexei sayle
yeah Yeah, well, he has that laugh that draws attention to himself.
00:38:30.14
Talal K
but yeah Yeah, it's the Eddie Murphy laugh, isn't it?
00:38:32.87
alexei sayle
All right.
00:38:33.05
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:38:33.75
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:38:34.36
Anthony Atamanuik
yeah um But yeah, I agree with you. I think that it's like five minutes. ah The comedy now, um especially as crowd work is this whole thing with like crowd work.
00:38:46.56
Anthony Atamanuik
It goes back to my contempt for the audience and this idea that I want to fucking talk to them like.
00:38:51.16
alexei sayle
yeah
00:38:51.76
Anthony Atamanuik
And so this is the new thing. You have a lot of people because comedy in the pandemic went to. um hits on Instagram and TikTok.
00:39:01.86
Anthony Atamanuik
So people started to not want to share their material.
00:39:02.20
Talal K
Yep.
00:39:05.22
Anthony Atamanuik
This is my i want to talk about like my favorite thing about comedians overblown idea sense of themselves. I don't want to share my material online because someone might steal it. So I'm going to show crowd work. And it's like no one's going to steal your material, dude. Trust me. here and no one And even if they do, who cares? ah So ah and the improv world.
00:39:27.77
Anthony Atamanuik
was more um sketch and improv was more like, um I would say kind of like what's over there.
00:39:31.35
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:39:37.46
Anthony Atamanuik
Similar in the sense that you had group. It's just you didn't have the same accessibility like your show. You know, I would say your show, ah ah you know, which has this hybrid of like sketch, right? Like you're you, but you're also
00:39:54.74
alexei sayle
Stuff or my BBC shows. Yeah.
00:39:57.18
Anthony Atamanuik
yourre Your Alexi show.
00:39:58.10
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:39:58.38
Anthony Atamanuik
ah Yeah, that that show to me, like lives in the Iannucci area, right, where it's like you're you, but you're doing sketch, but you're doing commentary.
00:39:59.35
alexei sayle
Yes. Yeah.
00:40:07.82
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm not saying they're the same.
00:40:08.21
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:40:08.94
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm i'm just saying like and I think about Tracy's show.
00:40:10.04
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:40:12.24
Anthony Atamanuik
Same thing, right? She's her. She's characters. That was that was very hard here. um to do. So if you were a sketch comedian, generally it was a troop or a group, right?
00:40:23.29
alexei sayle
Right.
00:40:23.84
Anthony Atamanuik
You're not getting, it's a very uniquely British thing. This idea of the individual, right? The sort of like, you know, what is it? the The golden ass, like the story, you know the single guy, the single character who's going through these tribulations and learning nothing kind of, you know, that that's a very British style thing.
00:40:42.81
alexei sayle
All right. Yeah.
00:40:44.33
Talal K
Hmm.
00:40:44.89
Anthony Atamanuik
um And not,
00:40:44.89
alexei sayle
yeah
00:40:45.59
Talal K
He had the Chappelle show. He managed it, didn't he, back in the day? The Chappelle show.
00:40:49.40
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes, Chappelle, I would say Chappelle is a rare example of that. um and And I would say Mr. Show, which I worked on with Bob and David, that was similar.
00:40:56.86
Talal K
Yes.
00:40:59.18
Anthony Atamanuik
But again, influenced by, you know, influenced by you guys. I mean, you know, that's that is also the other thing is when I think about what I watched when I was younger, it was Canadian and British comedy.
00:41:11.35
Anthony Atamanuik
It wasn't it wasn't a lot of American comedy.
00:41:12.07
Talal K
Hmm.
00:41:13.94
Anthony Atamanuik
It was
00:41:14.39
alexei sayle
How did you get... but First of all, can I just say I hate crowd work much more than I hate improv. Well, even more than I hate improv.
00:41:20.77
Anthony Atamanuik
All right, there we go. We're scoring points here. Yeah,
00:41:24.68
alexei sayle
Crowd work is the fucking evil.
00:41:28.56
Anthony Atamanuik
it's awful.
00:41:29.02
alexei sayle
And there's a guy here, what's he called? Paul Smith or something? Who's made a huge arena. Yeah, doing crowd work on fucking YouTube or whatever.
00:41:36.09
Talal K
Yeah.
00:41:39.22
Anthony Atamanuik
well
00:41:39.34
Talal K
He's a fellow Scouser, isn't he?
00:41:39.99
alexei sayle
council Yeah, yeah.
00:41:42.55
Anthony Atamanuik
I have a few people I could name that I can't fucking stand.
00:41:43.06
Talal K
know
00:41:43.10
alexei sayle
ye Yeah, you you two together. You two together. what's you What's your name? is Anyway, sorry I interrupted you. Yes.
00:41:53.78
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, no. I mean, I was just saying that, brit you know, i' we would watch. i mean, obviously we watched.
00:41:57.77
Talal K
What were you watching growing up then?
00:41:57.99
alexei sayle
How did you say it? Yes, that's how I'm curious.
00:41:59.08
Talal K
What were you watching?
00:42:01.05
Anthony Atamanuik
um Well, ah you know, obviously when I was little, little, i would watch Kids in the Hall and and ah Monty Python and I would listen to Goons.
00:42:08.92
alexei sayle
You got more British stuff on the Canadian broadcasting, on the CBC, yeah.
00:42:12.66
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, yeah. I would listen to Goons, believe it or not.
00:42:14.78
alexei sayle
Right.
00:42:16.09
Anthony Atamanuik
um Obviously, you know, Young Ones, which I think was on MTV. Yeah.
00:42:20.31
alexei sayle
Yeah, chopped up into kind of random order.
00:42:22.20
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. Yeah. Not, it was not, yeah, it was not, um, no, well, my television show, I've seen 16 cents a year.
00:42:23.93
Talal K
but
00:42:25.50
alexei sayle
I never got any money for it, yeah. ah
00:42:32.57
Anthony Atamanuik
um Um, and then, um, jam. I love jam. Uh, I think jam was series. Series one was jam.
00:42:41.75
alexei sayle
What was that?
00:42:42.52
Anthony Atamanuik
J a M it was, it was in the late nineties. All I remember, maybe we had a different name.
00:42:46.26
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:42:48.76
Anthony Atamanuik
um Hold on. Let me. ah
00:42:51.77
Talal K
Yeah, Jam TV series. That is from the late, it's written by Chris Morris, who we talk about a lot here.
00:42:55.73
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, Jim. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:58.93
alexei sayle
I thought it was, yeah.
00:42:59.93
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh my God. Jam is the best. There's one where they, took there's one scene that's just this guy talking about how he's going to sleep with this couple's daughter upstairs. And it is so fucking dark and it is so funny.
00:43:13.91
Anthony Atamanuik
And you know, what was it? ah Garth Merengue. Is that what it is?
00:43:19.42
Talal K
Yeah.
00:43:19.51
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:43:20.15
Anthony Atamanuik
And you know, all that stuff.
00:43:20.34
alexei sayle
So I don't think that was a big hit here.
00:43:21.51
Anthony Atamanuik
So then of course,
00:43:23.70
alexei sayle
yeah I suppose you, because you saw, you saw it over there. You didn't know where it quite fitted into the kind of cultural lexicon, but it that wasn't a huge hit over here.
00:43:29.50
Anthony Atamanuik
No, no, we would get VHSs, you know, and we'd get them at, you get them at cons.
00:43:32.89
alexei sayle
I don't think. All right. Yeah.
00:43:37.39
Anthony Atamanuik
So you would get VHSs at cons. And of course that's when I, you know, then when I started working with Matt, you know, you know, at the time, i remember when I first started working with Matt Barry on shadows, I sort of couldn't believe it.
00:43:52.34
Anthony Atamanuik
You know, I was like, I can't believe this. I can't believe I'm working with this guy, you know, and Natasha Dimitro is like, you know, Really, really, I mean, all, everyone's really funny, but I'll say in particular, Matt was, um, um an amazing moment.
00:44:08.73
Anthony Atamanuik
And then, um, you know, then of course we became friends. We had a lot of similar sensibilities cause I'm a big who V in two. So like I've been, you know, I've been going, I've been dressing like the doctor since 1982.
00:44:16.95
alexei sayle
ah
00:44:21.50
alexei sayle
Since Big Bang Theory kind of forefronted Doctor Who, didn't it? Felt like that came more central into kind of US culture.
00:44:28.66
Anthony Atamanuik
Well, no, but for me, it was on PBS and my dad used to, I remember my dad would sit me down in the kitchen and we would watch Doctor Who on the black and white. i remember the Lighthouse episode where there was this giant slug and it was black and white and Tom Baker's going up and down the stairs.
00:44:45.62
Anthony Atamanuik
and ah
00:44:46.78
Talal K
You know, Alexei was a big villain on Doctor Who.
00:44:49.82
Anthony Atamanuik
Wait a minute. When were you, wi which series?
00:44:51.42
alexei sayle
Yeah, A Revelation of the Daleks.
00:44:54.87
Anthony Atamanuik
Holy shit.
00:44:55.88
alexei sayle
19...
00:44:56.95
Talal K
The radio hosts
00:44:58.76
alexei sayle
You didn't know that. Yeah, 1985.
00:45:01.62
Anthony Atamanuik
No, no well no, because we didn't ever get the radio stuff.
00:45:01.59
alexei sayle
fine Yeah.
00:45:05.71
alexei sayle
No, this is TV. This was TV.
00:45:06.87
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, it was too.
00:45:07.11
alexei sayle
news Colin Baker, it was.
00:45:08.09
Anthony Atamanuik
Okay.
00:45:08.98
alexei sayle
The best, in my my opinion, the best documentary.
00:45:09.75
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, it was, you mean for Colin Baker's number six, you know, a lot
00:45:13.43
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:45:14.20
Talal K
No, but his his villain was a radio host kind of guy, right?
00:45:16.79
alexei sayle
I wasn't a villain. I wasn't a villain. I was a hero.
00:45:19.45
Talal K
Oh, forgive me. I don't watch that shit.
00:45:20.79
alexei sayle
Yeah, for once.
00:45:21.24
Anthony Atamanuik
wow.
00:45:21.99
alexei sayle
the aa Yeah, yeah,
00:45:23.16
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, I'm going to have to go through my, I mean, I, you know, my, my, my DVDs are key to time and a variety of, of, of like, uh, disparate videos.
00:45:33.96
Anthony Atamanuik
So off have to look through. i have, uh, Colin Baker books.
00:45:35.45
alexei sayle
yeah. Yeah.
00:45:38.44
Anthony Atamanuik
That's how deep I was into it.
00:45:40.07
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:45:40.60
Anthony Atamanuik
Okay.
00:45:40.81
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:45:42.36
Anthony Atamanuik
So, I mean,
00:45:43.13
alexei sayle
He was at, I did a Comic-Con recently. I forgot he was there. He's not. He's not there not great, really.
00:45:48.49
Anthony Atamanuik
how's he doing? Is he okay? Okay.
00:45:51.16
alexei sayle
Well, he was he was walking on sticks and stuff like that, but then on the other hand, he had to go off in the afternoon, and it was around about Christmas, so he was doing panto in, like, fucking Southampton somewhere.
00:46:02.28
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:46:04.25
alexei sayle
Oh, he's still working.
00:46:05.20
Anthony Atamanuik
Isn't that funny? Now, the anyone who's American who listens to this will not know that pantos are something that happen around the holidays.
00:46:09.85
alexei sayle
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:14.01
Anthony Atamanuik
ah And they're sort of like Christmas plays. They're often sort of like.
00:46:18.67
alexei sayle
Bizarre British tradition, really.
00:46:20.18
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:46:20.25
Talal K
Yeah, lots of crowd work.
00:46:20.54
Anthony Atamanuik
And they they made their way to Canada. And pantomimes are also in Canada.
00:46:23.73
alexei sayle
Oh, really?
00:46:24.50
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. Because my friend Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall used to do the pantomimes.
00:46:25.47
alexei sayle
wow.
00:46:29.15
alexei sayle
Because was never sure because I thought they had it in Australia as well. And then somebody told me that they didn't because I remember I was making a movie in Australia once. And I seem to remember that I was in first class.
00:46:43.54
alexei sayle
And i was off I was asked, yeah, I know.
00:46:44.23
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, well.
00:46:46.10
alexei sayle
but um This is relevant to the story. I'm not just bragging. But I was offered the, because you the cabin steward, I was offered, he said, you must come to the Qantas station.
00:46:58.02
alexei sayle
Steward's Christmas Panto, which is apparently like the gayest thing in in Sydney, which is a very gay city. um
00:47:08.66
Anthony Atamanuik
Did you go?
00:47:10.26
alexei sayle
No, the movie's finished just before Christmas, so I couldn't.
00:47:12.92
Anthony Atamanuik
and And did they say now, sir, could you please return back to coach? Cause we can't have you up here.
00:47:16.34
alexei sayle
ah Yeah.
00:47:17.46
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:47:17.50
alexei sayle
no, no,
00:47:20.22
Talal K
Put down the peanuts.
00:47:23.93
Talal K
the
00:47:24.15
alexei sayle
and it class um But then somebody else told me that they didn't have Panto in Australia, so I'm not sure. but but you't you've got So you have it in Canada. What form?
00:47:33.99
alexei sayle
Same form?
00:47:34.58
Anthony Atamanuik
yeah They, the, the, the
00:47:37.41
Talal K
Alexei's under the impression that you're fully Canadian. He was raised and born in the US.
00:47:40.57
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:47:42.06
Talal K
He's got Canadian family.
00:47:42.09
alexei sayle
I know, buddy.
00:47:45.34
Anthony Atamanuik
I know that um ah ah the... pan I mean, I saw a few when I was little because my aunt was in the theater scene, but I could not tell you beyond the fact that there were a bunch of people in drag.
00:47:56.10
Anthony Atamanuik
My memory of it beyond that.
00:47:56.47
alexei sayle
yeah but it's like cinderella and uh yeah it's the same story yeah yeah mother goose yeah yeah
00:47:58.26
Anthony Atamanuik
Because my... Yes, so they'll do. Yes, they'll do.
00:48:02.10
Talal K
Jack and the Beanstalk.
00:48:02.35
Anthony Atamanuik
a Yes, it's always it's always like a. And that's why i remember being like, oh, that's my first drag. That was like my first drag when I was like, you know, six or seven years old.
00:48:13.48
Anthony Atamanuik
You go, all right.
00:48:13.78
Talal K
Mm.
00:48:14.44
Anthony Atamanuik
You know, and also Canadian.
00:48:16.31
alexei sayle
yeah
00:48:17.16
Anthony Atamanuik
I'll tell you, if you ever want to have a rewarding theater experience. go to Northern Ontario dinner theater. There is no greater comedy that's in.
00:48:29.70
Anthony Atamanuik
It's inadvertent. I'm going to say this. They don't mean it to be, but it is some of the greatest comedy you will ever see in your life.
00:48:32.73
Talal K
ah
00:48:36.68
Anthony Atamanuik
I have lost my ass watching Canadian dinner theater.
00:48:37.08
Talal K
Wow.
00:48:41.09
Anthony Atamanuik
My, ah it used to be a big thing. My aunt and I would go, and we both kind of laughed, you know, snicker through the whole thing.
00:48:47.19
alexei sayle
So what, you go to a production of Peter Schaeffer's Equus while people eat a three-course meal.
00:48:50.84
Anthony Atamanuik
yeah
00:48:54.97
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes, but um I mean, fortunately, it would often be these sort of entrances and exits, you know, farces, you know, ah rib you know ah ah you know a man sleeping with one woman or whatever.
00:48:54.91
alexei sayle
Is that the idea?
00:49:03.45
alexei sayle
Right, yeah.
00:49:08.05
Anthony Atamanuik
But it was a lot of buffet blocking, a lot of farce, a lot of buffet blocking, a lot of people getting up and complaining about food in the middle of the show.
00:49:08.44
alexei sayle
Right, false, yeah.
00:49:17.69
Talal K
ah
00:49:19.96
Anthony Atamanuik
But my favorite was I saw Fiddler on the Roof. And Fiddler on the Roof with Canadians. Not a Jew among them. I mean, not one Jew.
00:49:30.61
Anthony Atamanuik
Because there's no Jews in Canada.
00:49:30.78
alexei sayle
ah
00:49:32.86
Talal K
ah
00:49:32.95
Anthony Atamanuik
and And so...
00:49:35.06
Talal K
Tradition, eh?
00:49:35.99
Anthony Atamanuik
it it No joke. It was a guy who went, it's tradition-y.
00:49:38.53
Talal K
That's brilliant.
00:49:40.22
alexei sayle
of
00:49:40.71
Anthony Atamanuik
And I went...
00:49:40.95
alexei sayle
well
00:49:46.33
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, God, that was so funny. God, Canadian theater.
00:49:51.03
Talal K
ah
00:49:51.80
Anthony Atamanuik
So, yeah. But anyway, i guess this was diverted from, ah yeah, I agree with you.
00:49:55.74
Talal K
that's brilliant
00:50:00.22
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm more mad at Democrats and labor than I ever am at the fascists because the fascists tell you exactly who they are. They show you who they are and they go, and we are, and we're damn proud of it.
00:50:11.10
Anthony Atamanuik
Come at us.
00:50:11.35
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:50:12.22
Anthony Atamanuik
Come, let's go. And if we keep shrinking from the fight, I think it is truly a belief in consumer comfort that is going to get us.
00:50:13.42
Talal K
Hmm.
00:50:13.72
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:50:22.97
Anthony Atamanuik
Because I think we believe there is some way to get out of this. This is like being cornered. You know, you're walking home late at night and you realize you're cornered by somebody and you think you can talk your way out.
00:50:37.43
Anthony Atamanuik
And sometimes you just can't talk your way out.
00:50:37.46
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:50:41.24
Anthony Atamanuik
Right.
00:50:41.98
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:50:42.14
Anthony Atamanuik
You've got to figure out and you might get your ass beat, you know, but you might have to physically. And I'm talking as a coward. I mean, I am a full blown coward. I'm a frightened man.
00:50:52.99
Anthony Atamanuik
I have no martial arts training. I but I do know there are situations even in my life where you have to get you have to push back in order to get out of the situation.
00:51:04.28
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:51:04.85
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think that these folks are so comfortable and
00:51:04.95
alexei sayle
yeah
00:51:08.31
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think they are having too much fun on island sex parties.
00:51:11.92
Talal K
hmm
00:51:12.76
Anthony Atamanuik
You know, this is another one.
00:51:13.66
Talal K
here
00:51:14.67
Anthony Atamanuik
Epstein's another one that I don't understand why people are surprised. I don't know about you. live through the 90s.
00:51:21.69
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:51:22.30
Anthony Atamanuik
ah Why is everyone surprised about Epstein? People were openly parading around with teenagers at parties like this is not some shock that powerful people are creeps.
00:51:28.09
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:51:31.13
Talal K
Mm-hmm.
00:51:34.78
alexei sayle
Yeah, they are.
00:51:35.45
Anthony Atamanuik
What what is the shock?
00:51:36.36
alexei sayle
They really are. Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:38.55
Anthony Atamanuik
what have What has happened to us? Because you and i we lived the same time stream, basically. We lived about the same time stream. So why is it that the world we lived in that we know existed, why is everyone pretending like it didn't?
00:51:47.06
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:51:53.94
Anthony Atamanuik
Why is everyone pretending as if it was some beautiful, egalitarian world where everyone was treated well and then all just fell apart because Donald Trump and one other guy?
00:52:03.10
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, because they were complicit, I think, is the reason, isn't it?
00:52:05.37
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:52:06.34
alexei sayle
you know i didn't ah I did have to check.
00:52:06.81
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
00:52:06.91
Talal K
yep
00:52:08.46
alexei sayle
I'm not in the i'm not in the files.
00:52:10.62
Anthony Atamanuik
ah you
00:52:10.93
alexei sayle
he come?
00:52:11.38
Anthony Atamanuik
I am.
00:52:11.39
alexei sayle
Did come?
00:52:11.98
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm in the file i'm in the Epstein files.
00:52:13.11
alexei sayle
a
00:52:13.98
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. Deepak Chopra ah recommended my show to Jeffrey Epstein.
00:52:19.54
alexei sayle
ah
00:52:21.75
Anthony Atamanuik
No joke.
00:52:23.00
alexei sayle
did he come
00:52:24.44
Anthony Atamanuik
ah Well, I'm sure he did privately.
00:52:25.75
Talal K
No, the president show Comedy Central, ah which I have to say, like because we're coming up to an hour now, I have to say, when it came out, and I still regularly look at clips of it,
00:52:28.54
Anthony Atamanuik
ah
00:52:36.60
Talal K
Like, the President's show, i um it wasn't big in the UK, sadly. But I think it did...
00:52:42.17
Anthony Atamanuik
No, I wasn't big in the United States either, I should just tell you.
00:52:44.50
Talal K
Well, it should have been, man.
00:52:45.16
alexei sayle
Thank you.
00:52:45.98
Talal K
Well, it's so fucking good. Your impression, obviously, it goes beyond mimicry. You're like a... It's a full psychological breakdown of who the man Trump is.
00:52:53.94
Anthony Atamanuik
I saw it as an acting job, not as an impression. I just saw it as an acting job.
00:52:58.54
Talal K
Hmm.
00:52:58.83
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm playing this guy, you know what I mean? like that that we predict Listen, I'm proud of it because we predicted very accurately a lot of events that ended up transpiring.
00:53:10.42
Anthony Atamanuik
And so I really feel like if there was, there's two things I had, I had a sketch show that I wanted to do. So I wanted to get as much done in that sketch show as I could. And the albatross was I had to play Trump.
00:53:23.19
Anthony Atamanuik
That was, that was the, that was the tax I had to pay to do my show.
00:53:26.26
Talal K
I was curious whether it was kind of a poison gift that you know because you're stuck with this character you know
00:53:28.47
Anthony Atamanuik
So it was right. So my tie thing to that was, okay, I'll be as, you know, as effectively I didn't want to become the fodder for the never Trumper folks. Like I didn't want to become this thing that was like DNC folks were like, isn't he like really giving it to the orange Cheeto?
00:53:51.29
Anthony Atamanuik
I wanted it to be an attack on the system that put him in place.
00:53:56.06
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:53:56.52
Anthony Atamanuik
And that's why I lasted one season.
00:53:59.58
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:53:59.64
Talal K
ah
00:54:00.76
alexei sayle
Yeah. ah
00:54:01.37
Anthony Atamanuik
ah
00:54:01.69
Talal K
ah But it is, but you know, everything in me wants to sit hit you know ask get you to do the fucking Trump now.
00:54:02.74
Anthony Atamanuik
You know?
00:54:07.74
Anthony Atamanuik
In British TV, I lasted four seasons. Yeah.
00:54:10.42
Talal K
Yeah, but it's called The President Show. You know, I recommend our listeners go look it up on YouTube, find the clips of it and go seek out the full series. It was during Trump's first, um however, and you've got, it's like a late night talk show hosted by Trump with some like ah VT, some sketches in there as well.
00:54:29.23
Talal K
And you've got Mike Pence as your co-host.
00:54:32.15
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes.
00:54:32.37
Talal K
Yeah.
00:54:32.63
Anthony Atamanuik
We sort of do a little bit of Blue.
00:54:34.23
Talal K
co-host
00:54:34.83
Anthony Atamanuik
We do a little bit of Tonight Show, a little bit of Blue Peter, a little bit of sketch. We sort of do a little bit of everything. So the show has pre-tapes. It has in-camera sketches.
00:54:46.87
Anthony Atamanuik
We predicted January So...
00:54:47.03
Talal K
And I...
00:54:49.46
alexei sayle
ready
00:54:49.72
Anthony Atamanuik
so
00:54:49.82
Talal K
Oh, wow.
00:54:51.58
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah, we predicted.
00:54:52.36
Talal K
Really?
00:54:53.18
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah. Our final special was I knew that they weren't going to do. So we did 24 regular episodes and then we did two specials. And the second special we decided to do is a tribute to Time Trumpet.
00:55:06.32
Anthony Atamanuik
So we did Hindsight 2030 was our version.
00:55:06.45
alexei sayle
Correct.
00:55:10.40
Anthony Atamanuik
And it was the show from 2030 looking back on the last 10 years.
00:55:15.45
Talal K
No way.
00:55:15.53
Anthony Atamanuik
And so um we, you know, obviously we did not hit everything. But one of the things we one of the main centerpieces of that show that ended up being memed a lot online or whatever was I wanted there to be a thing where he loses and he's in the Oval giving in ah in the night he loses. We have um a campaign speech and he says, I'm not going anywhere. I didn't lose.
00:55:45.05
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:55:45.27
Anthony Atamanuik
So we did that in twenty eighteen.
00:55:45.49
alexei sayle
All right.
00:55:46.55
Anthony Atamanuik
So almost verbatim the night that he lost to Biden, he says almost verbatim what we said in the show, ah including even the stage positioning, like where Don Jr.
00:55:47.16
alexei sayle
All right.
00:55:54.21
alexei sayle
Wow.
00:55:55.44
Talal K
Jesus.
00:55:58.52
Anthony Atamanuik
is like we we all wrote each other and we're like, oh, shit. Right.
00:56:02.04
alexei sayle
ah
00:56:02.90
Anthony Atamanuik
And ah and then um we did a timeline from the from his loss in November to the inauguration um of our fictitious candidate.
00:56:14.17
Anthony Atamanuik
And in that timeline, the broadcaster and he goes, we got it off by like five days, but we had, you know, they stormed the Capitol and there's a ah riot. And we did that and that people are rioting in D.C.
00:56:23.13
Talal K
Bloody hell.
00:56:26.05
Anthony Atamanuik
So and one of the funny things is January.
00:56:29.11
Talal K
do you feel somewhat responsible
00:56:31.61
Anthony Atamanuik
No, i I don't. I feel like if anything, i i do. I'm like, I wish someone had listened to anything that we had said in the sense that we gave an easy map to like who he was and how to be how to sort of. ah the whole like his vulnerabilities and just nobody. I mean, I and I got called in. yeah i mean, now I can say this stuff like I spoke to intelligence people at one point. I went to private Senate sort of what is strategy meetings and tried to advise senators on how to like deal with him.
00:57:09.18
Anthony Atamanuik
I did like a lot of stuff in, you know, for a period in D.C. where they would ask me to come help advise and no one would listen to me.
00:57:16.05
Talal K
Thank you.
00:57:19.35
Anthony Atamanuik
I went to the Clinton campaign when they were they were like, we're winning. I was went there in 2016 in this August of 2016. And Ronnie Mooks, who was her advisor, goes, well, we're winning by seven points. I'm like, you're not I'm like, you're losing by two.
00:57:36.66
Anthony Atamanuik
And he's like, that's not our polling data. I'm like, you should stop listening to your polling data because it's wrong.
00:57:40.52
alexei sayle
Yeah.
00:57:42.16
Anthony Atamanuik
You're losing and you're going to lose if you continue. And they literally kicked me out of the office. They literally told me to get out, get out of here.
00:57:53.21
Anthony Atamanuik
So,
00:57:53.21
alexei sayle
So what's it like and yeah what's it like now then, being there?
00:57:53.87
Talal K
Thank you.
00:57:54.81
Anthony Atamanuik
yeah
00:57:57.85
Anthony Atamanuik
um I think that what it is now is because the United States is so large, you have this sort of, I feel like safety pockets, right? Like I'm in New i'm in new England, New York.
00:58:07.32
alexei sayle
right yeah
00:58:10.35
Anthony Atamanuik
That's a safety pocket. You know, um I think what's happening that people don't understand is ah if the federal government is sending troops into so American cities,
00:58:24.19
Anthony Atamanuik
against the city's will, then there's already a form of civil um war happening. It might not be overt, but at least at the minimum, it is legal. So it is on paper a civil war because you have the states pushing back against the federal government. You don't have succession yet.
00:58:45.24
Anthony Atamanuik
But um I wonder, like, I i i wonder how long... Whether they'll try to pull this ice shit again in another city.
00:58:55.16
alexei sayle
Right.
00:58:55.35
Anthony Atamanuik
I think if they try to do it again in New York or Boston and it gets violent, um you know, I feel like. I feel like we are on the precipice of ah some sort of probably great disruption, whether it's going to be economic or it's going to be civil.
00:59:18.20
Anthony Atamanuik
I just feel like we can't continue this way because people people's pocketbooks will be affected and people's lives will be affected. And you can't live under that kind of stress for that long.
00:59:29.88
Talal K
Thank you.
00:59:30.37
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think that if the election happens, if the election is stymied the way I think it will be. I think it's going to put the general population in a state
00:59:44.23
alexei sayle
What you mean by that is that?
00:59:45.85
Anthony Atamanuik
I think that they're going to work very hard to game the the midterm elections, which would then take power out of the Congress.
00:59:51.69
alexei sayle
Right.
00:59:53.89
Anthony Atamanuik
And I think that here's what I'll say. He's not going to he's learned he's a psychopath and psychopaths learn their lesson the one time.
01:00:03.15
alexei sayle
Right.
01:00:03.67
Anthony Atamanuik
And so he's not going to let go of power without violence.
01:00:03.61
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:00:07.87
Anthony Atamanuik
That's just not going to happen. So. He will, even if the Democrats win, even if they go fine, we're not going to send ICE to polling stations. We're not going we're going to gerrymander the best we can.
01:00:19.25
Anthony Atamanuik
But, you know, we're unable and he's weakening, too. I mean, he's old, he's weak. And I think much like what the Germans did with Hitler, where they kept trying to sort of figure out how to get him out of the way so they could actually run the Reich.
01:00:32.57
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:00:34.38
Anthony Atamanuik
Right. Right.
01:00:35.22
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:00:35.54
Anthony Atamanuik
I think that you're seeing a very similar thing. You're seeing that they're learning their lesson. You know, we had all those old Nazis who came over to the U.S. right after the war to basically build our espionage space and advertising models so that we could so that we could become the new Nazi states of America.
01:00:49.50
alexei sayle
Yep.
01:00:53.87
Anthony Atamanuik
ah That like I think that um this is the lesson they're learning is how do we secure power as he fades?
01:01:02.68
alexei sayle
Yeah. Right.
01:01:03.32
Anthony Atamanuik
So um the question will be how many more norms can be broken? So in the U.S., if the if the Democrats did win control of the House, would the executive just decide to ignore the congressional branch?
01:01:18.17
alexei sayle
right
01:01:18.46
Anthony Atamanuik
I think that that's where all the pressure points are being pushed, which are the the the places at which it changes norms so drastically.
01:01:30.04
Anthony Atamanuik
But until people can't get their seamless delivery, until people can't get their Uber Eats or can't get their Netflix, I don't think much is going to change. People are very well sated by their distractions.
01:01:40.73
Talal K
and
01:01:44.31
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:01:44.57
Anthony Atamanuik
you know And I think that's the probably most dangerous part of what's what's coming.
01:01:48.12
Talal K
Unless ice are on your streets outside your house and then people were actually getting angry. It was like quite inspirational to see Minnesota's reaction to ice and
01:01:53.59
Anthony Atamanuik
Yes.
01:01:58.03
Anthony Atamanuik
Minnesota's reaction was incredible, and I'm sort of stunned that two... I mean, I'm not discounting the deaths of other folks, but I'm talking just in terms of American...
01:02:10.49
Anthony Atamanuik
the way Americans weigh things. So when I say this, it's about how my idea of how Americans weigh stuff, not what I think is important. A white woman and a white man got shot to death who were citizens.
01:02:24.41
Anthony Atamanuik
If that doesn't start to scare the people who are so like they don't care, they don't care what happens to immigrants. They don't care what happens to brown people. They don't care. So I guess it's not until some white bro named Chad or some blonde named, you know, Cherry get killed and they're Trump supporters and they get shot through the head through the A on the MAGA hat.
01:02:39.61
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:02:48.97
Anthony Atamanuik
Maybe then finally they'll wake up to the idea that we're all chattel. But like it it just doesn't seem like that's happening, despite the fact that American citizens got shot.
01:02:58.46
Talal K
Interesting. Yeah.
01:03:01.37
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:03:01.88
Anthony Atamanuik
You know, so, you know, what's Enoch Powell's great rivers of blood speech, right?
01:03:02.14
alexei sayle
Yeah. if yeah
01:03:07.86
Talal K
yeah
01:03:08.26
Anthony Atamanuik
It's like, you know, that's where that's what the state of the union was last night. I mean, it was might as well have been rivers of blood. It's just like there is that racist, that awful.
01:03:15.38
alexei sayle
Really, that racist. Yeah.
01:03:19.42
Anthony Atamanuik
And ah and I and I hope I've proved my bona fides as a as an American guest on a British show.
01:03:25.88
alexei sayle
Yeah, it's a fascinating insight.
01:03:26.39
Talal K
absolutely fuck
01:03:27.80
Anthony Atamanuik
ah
01:03:32.25
Talal K
absolutely
01:03:32.92
alexei sayle
Thank God when there's got nothing like that going on here.
01:03:37.43
Talal K
far
01:03:37.69
alexei sayle
we We can bask in it, yeah.
01:03:39.90
Talal K
Yeah, my dad always said when America sneezes, Britain gets a cold.
01:03:40.02
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
01:03:43.46
Talal K
So like, you know, we are, you know, a few steps behind. But um a goose steps, I should say, because it's it' coming.
01:03:49.78
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:03:50.20
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
01:03:50.61
Talal K
in
01:03:51.16
Anthony Atamanuik
have
01:03:51.83
alexei sayle
It's.
01:03:52.01
Talal K
It's fucking coming. in um Thanks so much, Tony. Plugs time. I want to let the listeners know, please, about our Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Alexis Sale. podcast. We don't want to take adverts on this show.
01:04:03.50
Talal K
We never want to. Audio boom. Keep knocking on my door saying, hey, we can have these adverts on your show and you'll get you get a few bob every thousand listeners.
01:04:08.86
alexei sayle
Okay.
01:04:11.46
Talal K
I'm like, uh, patrons where it's at, please. Let's keep it pure and clean. Now, Alexi, that's the first time Alexi's heard that and I can see his eyes, dollar signs in his eyes.
01:04:23.32
Talal K
So Kyle would sign up to the patron. We're actually, after we're done recording here, me and Alexi are going to record our first edition of Alexi Reacts. going to play Alexi a video of some old shit he's done.
01:04:34.46
alexei sayle
Oh, that's a thing, isn't it?
01:04:34.55
Talal K
And then, and then but're yeah, we're going to get your reaction to it.
01:04:35.99
alexei sayle
Reacting.
01:04:38.14
Talal K
Tony, you can stick around for that or not.
01:04:39.28
Anthony Atamanuik
You're going show him the puppet pilot sketch.
01:04:39.78
Talal K
It's up to you. Oh.
01:04:42.36
alexei sayle
Oh, that's a great, that's on YouTube.
01:04:43.63
Anthony Atamanuik
That's a great sketch.
01:04:43.70
alexei sayle
and That's brilliant. Yeah.
01:04:45.59
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
01:04:45.94
Talal K
Oh.
01:04:46.44
alexei sayle
I've written by, written not by me, but by Linahan and Matthews.
01:04:52.16
Talal K
Oh.
01:04:52.52
alexei sayle
If you, yeah.
01:04:52.66
Talal K
That's a Linehan joint. Uh-oh. Well, I, okay.
01:04:55.99
alexei sayle
If you follow Graham Linahan, you know, who also wrote The IT t Crowd, which brought Matt Berry to our attention, really.
01:04:56.44
Talal K
Okay.
01:04:59.77
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh yeah. I know Graham. Yeah. Yes, that's right.
01:05:04.03
Talal K
Yes, and he's...
01:05:04.22
alexei sayle
Yeah, so I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry I i plucked him from obscurity.
01:05:08.38
Talal K
hey He's Alexi's fault, that fucker.
01:05:09.05
Anthony Atamanuik
ah ah
01:05:10.55
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:05:10.62
Anthony Atamanuik
ah
01:05:11.98
Talal K
ah Well, it was either going to be that or the round, round, roundabout, you know, um give it a round full.
01:05:12.18
Anthony Atamanuik
Yep. Graham Graham. Okay.
01:05:17.27
alexei sayle
Drop down a Coke, give your hand, we'll come round round about.
01:05:19.19
Talal K
Or it was going to be...
01:05:20.10
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
01:05:21.03
Talal K
The other option was going to be... Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? I've got i got i got it. Alexi reacts. it It's a clip from...
01:05:30.65
Talal K
Sorry about last night. There's a little clip from that as well.
01:05:33.27
alexei sayle
All right.
01:05:33.93
Talal K
ah Anything, you know, and listeners at home, especially the patrons, send me, an email us, alexisalepodcasts at gmail.com.
01:05:38.71
alexei sayle
you
01:05:42.29
Talal K
Send me your YouTube links for clips of the Lexi stuff that you want him to react to. And then head over to patreon.com forward slash alexisalepodcasts. to support the show and watch those reactions. And then also, as I mentioned earlier, my improv team, the Bazaar, is doing Arabian Nights Live at Shoreham in the Rope Tackle, where me and Alexi are going to be back and on July the 30th, doing a live Alexi's Cell podcast as well.
01:06:05.08
Talal K
But Arabian Nights Live, if you want to see me and support my show, sorry, March the 6th, Friday, March the 6th at Rope Tackle. Tony, any plugs for you?
01:06:14.78
Anthony Atamanuik
Well, ah later in March, we don't have a drop date yet, but the probably mid to late March, Good Science with ah RFK Jr. and Kyle Quim.
01:06:25.14
Anthony Atamanuik
will be, be that's his name, ah not for real, but his fake name, um will be ah releasing on iHeartRadio.
01:06:25.82
Talal K
qui
01:06:31.16
Talal K
ah Yeah, yeah.
01:06:35.68
Anthony Atamanuik
have no idea why they are allowing us to do this, but we are. um And you can always follow me on TheRealActualTony
01:06:39.23
Talal K
Oh, wow.
01:06:43.96
Anthony Atamanuik
ah or TheRealTony of Patreon.com, which I rarely do anything on, but maybe will start after this inspiring Patreon podcast.
01:06:54.33
Talal K
Yes.
01:06:54.69
Anthony Atamanuik
uh, plug and, uh, yeah. And that's about it. I'm just, uh, over the moon to, to get to do this and to meet you is a real honor.
01:07:01.01
alexei sayle
yes thank you it's great yeah and me to any ah
01:07:03.56
Anthony Atamanuik
So, uh, thank you for, for letting me be on. And and it's good to see you, you know, if you ever need remote coaching, you let me know. i'll
01:07:12.12
Talal K
Oh, i've done my coaching days are through.
01:07:13.44
alexei sayle
improv coach mindfulness yeah
01:07:13.62
Anthony Atamanuik
I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
01:07:15.46
Talal K
I'm the coach now. I am the coach now, as they said to Captain Phillips.
01:07:17.82
Anthony Atamanuik
Oh, wow.
01:07:19.26
Talal K
No, yeah, I'm not in the improv scene anymore and I don't take lessons and shit.
01:07:20.06
Anthony Atamanuik
Very impressive. Yeah.
01:07:25.69
Talal K
I show up, we do our show.
01:07:26.55
Anthony Atamanuik
Good man. You know what?
01:07:27.05
Talal K
We do our show and then we get drunk.
01:07:27.95
Anthony Atamanuik
That's the answer. That's the answer. God bless you.
01:07:31.90
Talal K
Thank you.
01:07:32.50
alexei sayle
cheers Tony oh yeah have you back yeah it'd be great I mean your insights I think are you know that they come they come from a place that I think of real understanding of the society you live in really and it's a privilege to to get that kind of granular kind of understanding of the United States really you know no you're welcome thank you very much I'm not I'm
01:07:32.98
Talal K
But we'd love to have you back sometime, Tone.
01:07:56.41
Talal K
he
01:07:57.02
Anthony Atamanuik
Thank you. Well, thank you. And now go back to coach.
01:08:00.34
Talal K
well have a
01:08:01.39
Anthony Atamanuik
Now, please go back to coach, sir.
01:08:03.22
alexei sayle
I was. How can I have that? I want to just have a couple of them little bottles of champagne.
01:08:09.62
Talal K
Put the peanuts down.
01:08:15.08
alexei sayle
I'm not done it today. fucking resigned first class. They used to invite you into the flight deck. I sat in the cockpit of that plane when it came in to land at Changi in Singapore.
01:08:26.68
Talal K
No way.
01:08:27.70
alexei sayle
It fucked way, yeah.
01:08:29.61
Anthony Atamanuik
That's amazing.
01:08:30.46
alexei sayle
Yeah, let's go.
01:08:30.81
Anthony Atamanuik
Singapore, that's pretty great, huh? Wow.
01:08:32.98
alexei sayle
Yeah, well, it was a long time ago, but yeah. Well, especially when you come in and you bring a 7... I was flying that thing, basically. When you bring us when you bring a 747 into Changi, it's a different it's a difficult approach.
01:08:47.67
alexei sayle
it's I'll say that.
01:08:48.44
Anthony Atamanuik
ah
01:08:48.71
alexei sayle
It's a difficult approach, Changi, was then. ah You bring that big old bed around, you know, extend the flaps, ear down.
01:08:58.74
Anthony Atamanuik
This has so much more officiality because of your headset. It does look like you're a pilot.
01:09:02.58
alexei sayle
ah
01:09:03.22
Talal K
Oh yeah.
01:09:04.50
alexei sayle
ah So go to the the Qantas Stewards Christmas Panto and I landed that fucking jet at Chang'e.
01:09:06.20
Talal K
it
01:09:12.18
Talal K
In Sydney, yeah.
01:09:15.99
Anthony Atamanuik
I have my new pitch for you now, which is Alexi lands planes in ah and flight simulators. So you put them on a VR headset and we have you go do the approach and land a different airport.
01:09:23.41
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:09:23.94
Talal K
Mmm.
01:09:28.70
alexei sayle
I have done that but for a while. Not Westworld. What was it called? Westfield in Shepherd's Bush. They had a flight simulator and Linda, Linda, i don't know if it's still there.
01:09:35.61
Talal K
Yeah.
01:09:36.97
Anthony Atamanuik
Yeah.
01:09:37.86
alexei sayle
It was pretty great. It didn't really move or anything, but it was a proper pilot. um did it with you.
01:09:44.34
Talal K
We should go do that.
01:09:44.93
alexei sayle
And I lost my certificate. I was too excited. And I lost my certificate afterwards in in in the mall.
01:09:48.90
Anthony Atamanuik
Wow.
01:09:51.83
alexei sayle
um But yeah, i so i but i but I brought, well, yeah, no way on this subject. So I brought, what was it?
01:09:57.97
Talal K
you got him started now.
01:09:58.51
alexei sayle
It was a 737 and I brought it into St. Mark, the the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong. I don't you ever brought a bird into there. that was the That was considered the most difficult approach because you had to fly between the tower blocks.
01:10:08.31
Anthony Atamanuik
yeah
01:10:12.54
alexei sayle
So I brought 737 into the old Kai track and then, yeah, St.
01:10:13.27
Talal K
Whoa. whoa
01:10:16.06
Anthony Atamanuik
wow
01:10:19.17
alexei sayle
Martin's, of course, in the in the Caribbean, which is a difficult, very difficult approach.
01:10:23.95
Anthony Atamanuik
737 is tough because you get some you get some stall out when you're when you're pulling when you're throttling down and approaching.
01:10:30.07
alexei sayle
Yeah.
01:10:31.13
Anthony Atamanuik
You're going to get that stall out, that pull-out warning.
01:10:31.26
alexei sayle
and in Yeah.
01:10:33.73
Anthony Atamanuik
and You just got to ignore it.
01:10:34.33
alexei sayle
the Max, yeah, I know. I know i i know ways around that
01:10:42.65
Anthony Atamanuik
This is a great... ah yeah This has been a great pilot podcast.
01:10:44.67
Talal K
Bloody hell.
01:10:45.53
Anthony Atamanuik
I've been glad to talk about aeronautics and...
01:10:45.62
alexei sayle
Yeah, yeah. ah
01:10:48.60
Talal K
Alexi's come to life in the last two minutes of the show. Fucking hell.
01:10:51.93
Anthony Atamanuik
If I had known this, I would have brought up my flight simulator info at the top of the show.
01:10:55.48
Talal K
At the top, yeah.
01:10:56.61
alexei sayle
Oh.
01:10:58.20
Talal K
Jesus. All right.
01:10:59.32
Anthony Atamanuik
ah
01:10:59.29
alexei sayle
Most deaf. All right, thank you.
01:11:01.56
Anthony Atamanuik
All right, guys.
01:11:01.99
alexei sayle
Just let get on with your day. Thank you very much, Tony.
01:11:04.54
Anthony Atamanuik
Thank you. I'm not going to change anything. going wait.
01:11:07.35
Talal K
Thank you, thank you.
01:11:08.92
alexei sayle
No, yeah.
01:11:08.95
Talal K
But I just... Alexi hasn't said the magic words yet, though.
01:11:12.84
alexei sayle
Oh, bye-bye.
01:11:13.97
Talal K
There we go.
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