Hi.

Hi, I'm Adam Fally.

And I'm Casey Wilson. We were on an ABC TV show called Happy Endings that some people loved and many did not see.

The words called Favorite have been bandied about in reference to it.

As has critical darling.

Canceled too soon.

Theme song I couldn't sing.

What show are we talking about? And now we've made a podcast about it.

An important oral history, if you will.

I ran ass naked across Barham.

Yeah, and that's when Michael McKean and Megan Malali guested in that episode. Yes. That was great.

That was the She Got Them Vangs.

Oh, yeah. That was an improv of you. Oh, yeah. She got them things. She did have them things. I did have them things. They have them things are low.

We spoke to the directors of Happy Endings, who went on to direct the number one grossing movie ever made, Joe and Anthony Ruso.

Pally, do you remember, we've worked on, I don't know, 11 TV shows. We've probably I've been in over 500 auditions with networks. And of all of those shows and auditions, your audition for Sony is the most memorable audition.

Why?

Take us through it. Take us through it. What do you remember?

I remember it was a bomb. It was like a total bomb.

That was hard to hear.

Yikes, yikes, yikes. Did they put you in that number one grossing movie?

Absolutely not. In fact, they took me out of We spoke with the stars of Happy Endings.

They gave us such freedom to go as far into that direction of our, quote, unquote, weirdness. But it was really just that exploration to be able to do that was better than any acting school I ever could have gone to.

You took one of the yoga mats from outside the building, brought it into the audition, and then you started off with the shtick that you were going to do yoga for everybody. And it was like crickets in the room.

Casey, why are we playing another clip about my audition?

They spoke it so extensively. We had to offload the footage somewhere.

Yeah, but it feels like for a trailer, people got it.

It's not going to happen again. Trust me.

Thank you very much. It's hurtful.

You got it. We spoke to the creators of the show.

Because I had never pitched a TV show, much less been in a television room in my entire life and knew nothing about it.

But you're a handsome white man.

And against all odds, a Jew to come up through Hollywood.

Yeah, against all odds, against all odds. And so the great Jamie Tarzis and everyone at ABC and anyone around the project said, You need someone who knows how to run a television show. So I was supposed to meet all these people. And the first person I met with Jonathan Groff, and I loved him, and he had been the head writer of Konan, which I obviously grew up loving. And I said, show me no more choices. This is my guy. Work out the guest cast, you're working with the costal department, all the different department heads to make the show, production designer, if there's sets for that week, Finding the Directors of the Week.

Getting actresses out of their trailers if they don't like their belt.

There's a fair amount of that stuff.

That was a big job on Happy Endings. There was a big belt wrangler. We spoke to the man who canceled the show, Paul Lee.

He said in hindsight, he never would have let it run that long.

Maybe 10 years earlier, maybe on NBC, it would have been possible to build another must-see TV out of what David and Jonathan and then you guys and Natch and everybody had done. It wasn't the last chance, you know this better than I do, that we thought we had once the family audience didn't come in was the bachelor audience. But famously, reality audiences do not translate well and descriptive. Even though there were more 20 somethings watching Bachelor than there were Grey's Anatomy or Modern Family or Once Upon a Time, The mood you're in is so different.

Enjoy what is barely a podcast for barely a show.

Jk, we spent a lot of time on it, and we think Happy Endings is an incredibly special show that was well-reviewed, and we were nominated for People's Choice Awards.

Also Critics Choice Awards. The critics really loved us.

Oh, wait, it wasn't People's Choice. We were not the People's Choice. We were just the Critics.

Oh, so then it was just the Critics Choice. Actually, it's pretty obvious now, looking back, that we were not the People's Choice.

We've never been the People's Choice.

My bad. It was like Andy Kaufman level insanity. You You doubled down on the cricket.

Once you noticed that they were starting to check their watches, then you segued into a Mocking, Sony, like Mocking the whole idea.

Oh, that's a nice turn. They don't like you, so you're going to go harder. That's always your signature, Pauly.

Joe, I want to make this clear to other young actors. Do not do this. This will not. This barely worked for me. Do not do this.

It took a lot to turn that one around outside the room, brother.

No. Well, so I guess I owe you many thank you. We weren't even on topic on that one.

I'm sorry. They didn't like your audition. I know. They're making it clear. Enjoy the Happy Endings podcast. Available wherever you can get your podcast.

Where do people get podcasts?

I don't know.

Because I'm clicking while I'm driving.

It's not a good scene.