This week on the pod we welcome back our friend Bill Kenney to discuss the CV of Mr. Danny DeVito.

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[0:41 ] Thank you, Doug DeNance. My name falls off a cliff. And now, J.D. Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame podcast. My name is J.D., and it is great to be here with you all. I am just fumbling with my keys to get into the Hall of Fame. While I'm doing that, I will wipe my feet. Do the same would you come on in as we prepare to go to a conversation with our friend thomas senna and our equally good friend bill kenny is back to join us and they are here to discuss danny devito now before we go any further i want to just make sure everyone is aware of our new you email address. It is the SNL hall of fame at gmail.com. That's correct. I chose the maximum number of letters I could choose for the prefix, the SNL hall of fame at gmail.com.

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[1:44 ] It might seem trivial to you, but, uh, we love to hear from you. So send us those emails, review the pod and for heaven's sake listen to the snl water cooler it's our brand new show on the snl hall of fame and uh we have sherry fesco and joe gannon joining me once a week to discuss the week that was in the snl hall of fame and we touch upon the current episode of snl as well where we identify the Hall of Shame and the Hall of Fame moments of that particular episode. I am out of breath because I have been racing down the hall to catch up with our friend Matt Ardill, and we should probably do that.

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[2:33 ] So I'm going to make a confession here. Even though the show has been on for coming up to 20 seasons, and this gentleman has been on most of those seasons, I haven't seen a single flippin' episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And this week we're talking about one of its actors and somebody who's got a long resume dating back to Taxi, at least. I'm sure there's more before that. But let's go to our friend Matt Ardill and learn some more about this week's nominee, Denny DeVito. Hey, Denny. Thanks. I am shocked. i genuinely you can't jump in with the nightmare nightmare episode that would just be too much of a system shock but if you ever have the chance it's it's it is dark but it is funny so i highly recommend always sunny um but yeah so i'm looking forward danny is a great a great actor um, 4'10", born November 17th, 1944, who shares the birthday with Lorne Michaels. So same birthday.

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[3:49 ] So he's born in Neptune, New Jersey, grew up in a family of five, and was raised in Ashbury Park, New Jersey. He would frequently eat at Jersey Mike's, which he grew up just down the street from the first location, which is why in 2022, he became the spokesperson for the subway chain, Jersey Mike's. He just loved it. And Danny is a person who follows his passions.

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[4:17 ] He was sent to boarding school to keep him out of trouble. He graduated in 1962 and then took a job at his older sister's beautician salon. She paid for him to get his beautician certification, which led to him getting a certificate in makeup at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. But to get that, the teacher said he had to sign up because she couldn't just teach him on the side. He had to be a student of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, so he signed up and found his passion for acting after only a single semester at the school. Cool. Wildly enough, one of his sister's partners at the hair salon was a relative of a future colleague of his, Jack Nicholson, with whom he performed on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. That's right.

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[5:23 ] This eventually became a prolific career, including 154 acting credits, 49 producer credits, 23 director credits, 16 soundtrack credits and four writing credits. I mean, how can we forget his performance of Troll Toll in the Dayman musical on Always Sunny? I mean, it's the weirdest one of his ever, his experience, his performances.

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[5:52 ] But I do have to say, I was shocked to also see that he performed Put Down the Ducky on the Sesame Street Put Down the Ducky TV movie. His range is truly epic in scope um now after starting as an actor he actually shared a small apartment with michael douglas and they remain friends to this day um during his time uh in new york he actually met his now estranged wife rhea perlman well in the off-broadway play the shrinking bride uh they then went on to get a grant from the american film institute together and write the and produce minestrone a short film in 1975 which screened at con and has.

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[6:42 ] Since been translated into five languages um he was the original casting choice for mario in the 1993 super mario's movie uh dropping out i'm guessing after seeing the script uh condemning bob hoskins to infamy um now he this is another one of those like i i'm kind of glad they didn't cast make this choice uh because i don't think it would have worked but he was almost george costanza what he almost he was in consideration for the role of george costanza it wouldn't have worked it would it's it's the wrong energy but it would have been wild to see Now he has been nominated for Best Picture for Aaron Brockovich.

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[7:30 ] Along with NOMS for Batman Returns, American Comedy Writing Awards, Berlin International Film Festival Awards, Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, BAFTAs, Cable A's, Emmys.

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[7:43 ] And more. He is so award-nominated, it's hard to keep track. But one of his earliest big wins was a 1981 Emmy for Taxi, which revolved around buying a pair of pants. About how he was so short and so round, he had to go to the Husky Boys section to get pants as an adult. And that was the plot in a Taxi episode that won him his first Emmy. Um, he commits, uh, like during his time as the penguin in those scenes where you see him like noshing on raw fish, that is actual raw fish that he is just tearing into, uh, not fake fish. Um, he is very famous, uh, on social media for his troll foot pictures where he will travel around the world and just take pictures of his great old big troll feet. Um, and in fact own, he is such a fan of Lemoncello. He has actually opened his own Lemoncello, uh, manufacturing plant simply named Lemoncello by Danny DeVito. Well, short and sweet, I suppose you might say.

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[9:03 ] Of course you might not say as well. There's both options on the table. So let's get right to thomas and our friend bill kenny as they continue to talk about danny devito take it away thomas.

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[9:48 ] Alright, JD and Matt, thank you so much for that. Hello and welcome to the conversation portion of this episode of the SNL Hall of Fame. Season 6 and we are rolling in this season. It's been a really good one. Talking about lots of great hosts, cast members, musical guests, etc.

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[10:07 ] Today we're dipping into the host category. A six-timer? If you, well, it depends. I'll ask Bill about this. But yeah, so there's maybe a little caveat to this, but he's at least a five-timer. We consider him a six-timer. It's Danny DeVito today on the SNL Hall of Fame. And with that, of course, Bill Kenney, just amazing SNL knowledge with the Saturday Night Network, a man who mingles with the stars, with Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi. So he, yeah, he's he. But he kind of stepped down in weight class a little bit, and he's appearing with me here on the SNL Hall of Fame. Bill, thanks for joining me. Thomas, thank you for having me back. This is always such a good time. Listen, I mean, you're a celebrity in your own right, so let's not bury the lead here.

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[11:01 ] Dan Aykroyd is fine, but the conversation is going to be great with this. Always a good time to talk to you. I appreciate that, man. So you've done a host before, Martin Short. We had such a blast with that Marty Short episode. And I know you're a Danny DeVito fan, so I had to ask you. He's one of the names that I threw out, and you jumped on Danny right away. So before we get started in that, I'm curious, what's going on over at the Saturday Night Network? We just started celebrating Season 50 of Saturday Night Live, a couple episodes into it. What's going on there as far as continuing the celebration here? Yeah, if you haven't checked us out in a while, please do so.

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[11:44 ] During show weeks, we have a lot of great content from our Hot Take show, which is right after SNL on Saturday night at 1.10 a.m. We also have our roundtables, which dive deeper into the sketches. And then By the Numbers is every Wednesday, and we talk about the statistics, which is where we made our bones at the beginning of our podcast so and then of course there's lots of other content we do in off weeks uh during the summer we just uh did the greatest host countdown of all time thomas you joined us for one of the last episodes of that we had a lot of fun uh breaking that down and uh i think that's where the danny devito uh stuff started right because he was on the very first episode of the host countdown that we did and uh we all agreed, that it was way too low, and I can't wait to talk about that as well.

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[12:36 ] Yeah, 100%. And I heard how much love you had for Danny and his hosting gigs and stuff. So I had to kind of like throw his name out there for you in the off season. So I love the stuff that you do in the off weeks in the off season. That's where all of us like dorks can roll up our sleeves and get get into like brass tacks about SNL. So I love that you guys do different drafts. There's different like neat concept shows. That's when the dorks thrive, Bill.

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[13:03 ] Oh, without a doubt. That's when we have, we'