#874 - Scott Adams

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Scott Adams, ladies and gentlemen, here we are.

Scott Adams (0:06)

Hey, Joe.

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Good to see you again, man.

Scott Adams (0:07)

Good to see you again.

Joe Rogan (0:09)

I met you decades ago.

Scott Adams (0:11)

Do you remember that horrible story?

Joe Rogan (0:13)

I don't remember a horrible story, but it was on news radio.

Scott Adams (0:16)

What was the horrible story? Do you remember my humiliation that day?

Joe Rogan (0:18)

No, what happened?

Scott Adams (0:20)

So for those of you who weren't with us on that set, I had a small line, just one line, on news radio because it was an episode that mentioned Dilbert. So I was invited as a guest.

And you were giving the line before my line. So I just came in and they said, Joe's gonna say this, Joe, say your line. And you turned to me and you said your line. And they said, when he says that, you say your line. And of course I'm panicked because I don't do this, right? I'm not an actor. So the scene starts, and it's one of these scenes that runs continuous from beginning to end. It's not like a movie where you cut it every 10 seconds. So you have to do it right all the way through.

And we get to my line, and you're turning the other direction. So the line I'm waiting to hear, instead of hearing it clearly, like in practice, when you were facing me, I hear, wom-womp, wom-womp. Oh no. And I think to myself, I don't know what his other lines are. So I don't know if that sounds like my line, or is that, should I go? And I said to myself, 50-50 chance, right? I either ruin the scene by saying something in the wrong time, or I ruin the scene by being silent when I should have been talking. So I said, I'm gonna go with silent. And I just stood there in silence, and everybody got really quiet. I don't know if you remember why you did, but it's burned in my mind.

You were very nice that day, but you just sort of slowly turned around and looked at me. And meanwhile, all the other actors sort of slowly turned around and looked at me because I was the source of the problem.

And then, but I have to admit, I was impressed because then all the actors went back to square one and did the entire scene through again perfectly. I mean, it's very impressive if you're not an actor to watch how many lines a bunch of professionals can do without screwing up any of them. It was an awesome kind of an afternoon.

Joe Rogan (2:15)

Well, News Radio was a very unusual show in that there was a lot of changing stuff on the fly. Like the writers would come in and then rewrite a line like on the fly. Like they would do one line, they would do one take, and then Paul Sims, Josh Liebman, all these guys would get together and they go, okay, that's, let's try this. Let's try this, we'll go back. But then when Scott turns to you, now say this. And then we'd have a totally new line for the next scene.

And so we'd have to like be standing over by the elevator going, no, that's not gonna work.

No, that's not gonna work. We do like come up with a bunch of different ways to say it and then just run with it on the fly.

Scott Adams (2:50)

Oh, man, people don't realize how hard that is.

Joe Rogan (2:52)

It's not that hard, honestly, it's not coal mining.

Scott Adams (2:54)

Well, you have to have the right kind of mind for that memory.

It's sort of like when a musician can do, you know, 50 songs from memory, and I'm thinking, I could do seven notes, you know, and then I'm good. Like, that's all I could remember in a row. And after that, it'd be just me guessing.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

Well, if you think about how many, just think about language itself, how many words you can access just instantaneously, just pull them up from your memory.

You know, it's just that's what you do all the time. And if you all the time were reading sitcom scripts, you just get used to that sort of flow and how things go, it's not really bad.

Scott Adams (3:30)

Everything looks difficult if you don't know how to do it.

Joe Rogan (3:32)

Exactly, exactly.

Scott Adams (3:33)

People say that about my job as well. It's like, how do you do that? It's like, well, it happens to be the one thing I can do well, you know, and I can't do most things well, but one little thing I can do well.