“The Other Guys” are joining us for a very special double-interview! Dial the Gate is privileged to chat with Patrick McKenna and John Billingsley together about one of Stargate’s most zaney episodes.

Share This Video ► https://youtube.com/live/_HXcFjW6W54

Visit DialtheGate ► http://www.dialthegate.com
on Facebook ► https://www.facebook.com/dialthegate
on Instagram ► https://instagram.com/dialthegateshow
on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/dial_the_gate
Visit Wormhole X-Tremists ► https://www.youtube.com/WormholeXTremists

MERCHANDISE!
http://www.dialthegate.com/merch

SUBSCRIBE!
https://youtube.com/dialthegate/

Timecodes
Coming Soon!

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

#Stargate
#DialtheGate
#TurtleTimeline

TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Welcome back everyone to Dial the Gate: The Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read, I really appreciate you all being here for this one. This is one I have been wanting to have for quite some time. As many of you know, “The Other Guys” is one of my favorite episodes from the series…and I have them. John Billingsley, Patrick McKenna, thank you so much for being with me for this episode. Patrick, how are you?

Patrick McKenna:
I’m excellent. I’m usually not this red, it’s just lighting. It’s the Canadian in me, that’s what is happening, I think.

David Read:
Let me move this around here really quick. Yes. We have to do what we can with what we got in the situation that we’re in, in the room that we’re in. Mr. Billingsley, welcome back to Dial the Gate. How are you, sir?

John Billingsley:
I’m well. I feel pale in comparison. I should go out and get a little sun and come back inside.

Patrick McKenna:
I’m missing something here.

John Billingsley:
I don’t know. The heat lamp is always going in Patrick’s house. That’s one of the things I’d like to talk about. He had a tanning bed in his hotel room when we shot the episode. Most people aren’t aware that Patrick asked for a lot of things in his contract. I didn’t get any of my requests, but Patrick, he had a tanning bed.

Patrick McKenna:
Actually, I did, John. I had your bed removed from your hotel room, that was me. I do all sorts of things.

John Billingsley:
Shit. I was sleeping on leaves for the most part, for the week. Yes, it’s true; leaves, dirt. It’s worth it; to work with Patrick, it was worth it.

Patrick McKenna:
It was, absolutely. It was such a blast, such a blast. So easy to do.

David Read:
Have you guys been in the same space together since that episode?

Patrick McKenna:
No.

David Read:
Wow. OK.

John Billingsley:
Depends upon how you define things.

David Read:
Physical space.

John Billingsley:
I suppose we’re all working on planet Earth together, as you know. I’ve been to Canada. That’s narrowing down too.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s close.

John Billingsley:
We’re all working on planet Earth together, as you know. I’ve been to Canada. That’s narrowing down too. I’ve probably been, relatively speaking, miles away from your house, Patrick. I was too shy to call.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s too bad. I wouldn’t have answered.

John Billingsley:
You never gave me your contact information either.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s really the big thing there. It’s more of a legal thing than anything else.

David Read:
Guys, Patrick, you’ve done two episodes of Stargate. John, you’ve done one.

John Billingsley:
Why do we always have to rub that in my nose? I know, I know. They didn’t bring Coombs back. They brought Felcher back, or Felger, or whatever his name was.

David Read:
Let me restart. Guys, you’ve both done a small amount of Stargate content.

Patrick McKenna:
I did two. John did one.

David Read:
OK. Very good.

John Billingsley:
It was a small amount of content, yet here we are on your show again for the 18th time.

David Read:
Yes, absolutely. I’m really pathetic.

John Billingsley:
It must mean a lot to the fans, I don’t know.

David Read:
I’m curious as to how often this episode comes up in fan communication compared to your other body of work. Is it, “oh, this is the second time I’ve talked about this in 20 years and both times were with you.” Or is it, “every once in a while, someone brings this up? Something happened in that episode that really resonated with people.” Patrick?

Patrick McKenna:
Stargate has got a completely different fandom up here. When they recognize a Canadian in it, they get excited by that too. It was such a different episode and sometimes people organically click the way John and I interacted. It was a real different energy within the show and I think it stood out that way for people. People still do, ’cause those who love Stargate, they know it pretty darn well. They’ll pick me out in a crowd and go, “You know, I know you did some other stuff, but Stargate…” which I take it as a great compliment. It’s terrific.

David Read:
John, you have done.

John Billingsley:
Yes. I could do three more.

David Read:
This is how set I am today.

John Billingsley:
I can do five or I could do three more.

David Read:
We started 10 minutes late and I can’t even…

John Billingsley:
I have got to, I have done…

David Read:
… did that.

John Billingsley:
… and I have done a gotta.

David Read:
A number of Stargate conventions, Star Trek conventions. How often has Stargate, this role, come up at the Star Trek conventions? I would bet more than a few times.

John Billingsley:
I flogged my Stargate pictures, so it’s gonna come up. Yes, I’m a whore, like so many of us are.
It comes up.

Patrick McKenna:
There were so many great Star Trek references in the episode.

John Billingsley:
Yes. Thank you very much, David, for sending the link. Now, on my screen I see two of me. It was confusing there for a minute.

David Read:
You can just make my screen your whole screen if you want. It won’t affect us.

John Billingsley:
I’d like to see everybody.

David Read:
Understood.

John Billingsley:
Equal opportunity that way. Yes, I had forgotten that. There I am again, twice. I had forgotten that my character was such a huge Star Trek fan. David was kind enough to send the link so I got to watch the episode for the first time in 20, 30 years, whatever it was. I also forgot I vomited in the episode. I had not remembered that.

David Read:
That’s right. There’s a couple of great lines that you deliver. One of them, probably my favorite one, is the old thing: How can you claim to be… I forget what he was specifically referring to.

John Billingsley:
“How can you claim to be a scientist and not worship at the altar of Roddenberry?”

David Read:
That’s exactly right. Did you feel at the time, being on Enterprise, that that may be a little too on the nose for you? Or was it like, “Oh, this is perfect!”

John Billingsley:
You don’t always know the reason why you’re cast in something. My suspicion is they thought it would be kinda clever to have a Star Trek actor play the part of a Star Trek enthusiast, but I don’t know if that’s the case. I can’t really honestly recall whether I got offered this part or I auditioned for it. It was long ago and far away.

Patrick McKenna:
I remember when I got it, that they kept saying, “John is in Star Trek. John is in Star Trek.” They were thrilled that Star Trek was crossing over from where I was.

John Billingsley:
OK.

David Read:
There are definitely a few Star Trek actors. Two of your contemporaries, Jolene Blalock and Connor Trinneer, were in the franchise later on. Brad Wright is a huge Star Trek fan, so it was a big deal to have that, I don’t wanna say blessing, but crossover for the fandoms.

John Billingsley:
Crosspollinating?

David Read:
Very much so. There’s inside jokes between us now, where it’s all like, “You’re in that one, but you’re also in that one.” And, “oh, he played a really different character over there.” It was nice to actually see your face, John.

John Billingsley:
Thank you. A face that only a mother could love. When I watched the episode I thought, “Good heavens to Betsy. It’s a wonder I’ve ever worked at all in this business. My God, have mercy.”

David Read:
Geez.

John Billingsley:
You’ll notice that Patrick’s the one who got to neck with the lady at the end of the episode. I just, I got a buss on the cheek.

David Read:
It’s from his perspective, that’s how it goes. Patrick, there are a number of fans who look at that episode and say, “The whole thing is in his imagination. Both of these episodes, they’re his daydreams.” I’m like, “I would not daydream about putting my pants on backwards, thank you very much, that’s not possible.” Which happens in the next episode.

Patrick McKenna:
That was a good dream for Jay. He got pants on, that was the main thing.

John Billingsley:
Do you think it’s possible that Coombs does not exist at all? Is he fictitious as well?

David Read:
Like a Cylon in your head?

Patrick McKenna:
Didn’t they say in the second episode that it proved that the first episode was real?

David Read:
Yes, because there are episodes later on that reference both of these events. I can tell you that the bad guy, who was played by the second bad guy, Michael Adamthwaite, who played Herak in this episode, very much comes back later on in the season. In the next episode that you were in Patrick, and you John, were not in, there are references later on to deactivating the entire Stargate network, which Patrick’s character, Jay, did. He turned the whole Wi-Fi system offline for the first time in millions of years. It was hilarious.

Patrick McKenna:
It was a good one. It was a fun one.

John Billingsley:
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Patrick McKenna:
Very bad.

David Read:
It’s very bad. No one could use their Stargate but us.

John Billingsley:
Not being a Stargate… I won’t say fan. I just didn’t watch the show. Probably Patrick has a similar experience; you don’t always watch everything you’re on. I was completely lost; I had no idea. There’s a gate and the portal and the Ha’rok and the Zubra and the Galala, I was like, “What the fuck?”

Patrick McKenna:
“Goaul.”

John Billingsley:
All I had to do was, “I’m scared shitless.” That’s all I needed to know. This guy’s an asshole, that’s it. That’s all I needed to know.

David Read:
And it works.

John Billingsley:
The rest of it, it means nothing.

David Read:
It’s funny.

Patrick McKenna:
Begin!

John Billingsley:
You’re always thrown in, if you’re an actor, into series that you’re not familiar with. Frequently it’s like, “Well, I have no idea what’s going on here.”

Patrick McKenna:
There were script consultants following us around pretty close on how to say things and how to react to certain things. “This is a recurring,” and, “This is serious,” John’s absolutely right. You’re just thrown into the middle of it and that skipping rope’s already turning. We just gotta jump in there somewhere. The crew knows what’s going on, everyone in the cast does. The catering people know. John and I were the only two who didn’t know.

John Billingsley:
I didn’t remember people following around trying to tell us shit, though.

Patrick McKenna:
I had to say “Gould” so many times.

John Billingsley:
“Gould”

Patrick McKenna:
“Gould.” “Gould.”

John Billingsley:
Oh, I do remember that, yes. There were certain pronunciation issues.

Patrick McKenna:
I tried to cover my mouth a lot when I would say things, or look away, to make the ADR, I could sneak in and get it in there.

David Read:
At least, Patrick, at least in Stargate, if you leave out an apostrophe, the script coordinator doesn’t come over and bash you over the head with the book.

Patrick McKenna:
No.

David Read:
In Star Trek, if you change a word, they come after you. Don’t they, John?

John Billingsley:
Tell me about it. As scripted, everything as scripted, no improv. Although, every now and again you can slip something in. I famously, although nobody ever catches this, there was an episode in which the character played by the actor Anthony Montgomery, whose name was Mayweather, is in trouble. I’m in hibernation and they wake me up in the middle of a deep sleep and they say, “You’ve gotta come immediately. You have to come immediately. Mayweather’s in trouble.” “Mayweather? Where’s Mayweather?” I look under the covers as if he’s fellating me and I thought, “They’re never gonna let that fly” and it did. It made it into the episode and I thought, “I’ll be damned.” Every now and again, you can get something in, a joke, but you can’t change the words.

Patrick McKenna:
No. I always find it’s good when the scene’s over, if you can tag it and if the crew laughs, they might keep it in ’cause it doesn’t change the scene.

John Billingsley:
They might keep it in.

David Read:
That’s right.

Patrick McKenna:
They can edit it out if they want, but you’ve added a little pepper in there.

John Billingsley:
Until the directors catch wise and then suddenly, they’re not giving you any wiggle room at all. “Cut!”

Patrick McKenna:
“Cut!” Exactly.

David Read:
Patrick, John is describing a scene where he’s woken up and he’s speaking in Denobulan for a minute, but in the deleted scenes…

John Billingsley:
Denobulan, Denobulan. My God, you butchered my species’ name.

David Read:
Denobulan, Denobulan, Triaxa. Yes, in the deleted take, it’s with the reel at the end of the year. It’s hilarious. I don’t know how many times they went through it. Jolene couldn’t keep a straight face and Phlox is coming out of being woken up and he goes, “I don’t care what it tastes like.” Jolene busted up. Oh, what a role. Guys, this is going somewhere. Patrick, when do you remember that you were making people laugh and could be, “I wanna do that again?” Where did the spark of comedy, and when did it really hit you? Or was it something, “I’ve always intuited this behavior?” I’m curious.

Patrick McKenna:
I have ADHD, so I’m in tune with being, “Hey, look at me.” Then I realized I better have something to follow it up with if they’re gonna look so I started being funny. I remember I saw a Dick Van Dyke episode one time and I did the whole thing at dinner to show my family what I saw. Everyone was laughing and in our family, you don’t talk or do anything at table. That was one of those moments going, “If I can make them laugh, I think I got a good chance.” I don’t know what John was like as a student, but I know if I can make teachers laugh, I wouldn’t get in trouble and things like that. You kind of hone your sense of humor. I got in a high school play and I had a very small part, but it was a funny line and everybody laughed in the theater. As you said, that moment of, “Oh, I wanna do this some more. I really like this.” A teacher, oddly enough, took me to see Second City and I saw Martin Short and Catherine O’Hara and John Candy, all them in the live cast. I went, “Oh, no, no, no. That’s what I wanna do. That.” Luckily, a few years later, I was able to. I don’t know if John’s the same way, where sometimes something just sparks you going, “Oh, it can be like that too.” I wasn’t big into theater per se, I just wanted to show off.

David Read:
John?

John Billingsley:
Somewhat different, in that I never really… Definitely in school. One, you’re trying to make the class laugh, and two, it’s your defense against the bullies. If somebody threw stuff in the locker, you’re gonna get three fucking quips off, because they eventually say, “I don’t wanna be on the receiving end of a sharp tongue” and they leave you the fuck alone.

David Read:
“You will all work for me one day.”

John Billingsley:
My comedy tends to be probably overly aggressive, consequently, sometimes. It’s also, of course, a matter of taste. I think my wife maybe would have said I was funny 30 years ago, I’m not so sure she would say so now. I don’t know that I started thinking in any way, shape, manner, or form that I was particularly gifted as a comedic actor. I was a theater actor and you have comic roles; you have dramatic roles and sometimes you’re looking to find the comedy in the drama and you’re always looking to find the drama in the comedy. It’s a human being who’s in a set of circumstances that are demanding and depending upon whether or not it is written for comic effect or dramatic effect. The script is going to tell you what channel you’re working in. I never tended to think that I was particularly a comedian so much as I was somebody who was looking to find a way to play the action fully and to be as emotionally invested as I could and then it takes care of itself.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah, that’s the difference there. John’s a professional and he works at this. I think that’s why he has a career.

John Billingsley:
I pshaw and I would disagree with that. I’m sitting around reading books all day. Ageism. I do think that, as you get older, you also reach a point where you simply don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks about you.

David Read:
True.

John Billingsley:
That is a great liberator if you have a sense of humor. Sometimes, I think when you’re young, that instinct to measure twice, three times, five times, seven times before you make a joke is what actually sort of stifles your capacity to develop your sense of humor. Although I don’t know that I ever measured even once. Certainly, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve loved the fact that I truly don’t really care about other people’s opinions. I don’t wanna hurt people’s feelings, but…

David Read:
You’re not gonna go out of your way; you’re still gonna be you.

John Billingsley:
I don’t wanna defer overly to people’s too delicate sensibilities.

David Read:
I’m curious, and we’re gonna start with Patrick first. You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to. Both of you: do your spouses think you’re as funny as your audiences do?

Patrick McKenna:
I’m very lucky. Yes, my wife does. She’s also very funny so we make a point to make sure we make each other laugh as much as we can. That’s something we built into the whole arrangement; if we’re not having fun, this is gonna be over. We go out of our way to always have fun with each other. We’ve been, what, 44 years married now. I think we still treat it like we’re dating. If you’re dating, you’re always on your best behavior, best jokes. Everything is on your top, top of your intelligence, not the lowest. So yes, we still laugh a lot.

David Read:
John?

John Billingsley:
She used to think I was very funny. I think about the 18th time she heard the same joke, she probably went, “New material, pal. New material.” I adore my wife. I make a lot of jokes about my wife and she makes a lot of jokes about me. I think that’s important in a relationship to be able to play with each other and to not take each other too seriously. There’s always a place in a relationship when you recognize that it’s time now for a conversation where you’re gonna put the jokes to the side because you’ve got something serious to talk about. I think that’s really important to recognize that having a sense of humor and a sense of playfulness is a constant, but nobody wants to be married to the class clown who’s on 24/7.

David Read:
‘Cause what’s underneath? There’s gotta be something there that’s generating that. For Robin Williams, for instance, there was a lot of pain under there. If you’re gonna be married to someone, you have to be married to the whole person. Not necessarily married, but have a partner for life, or whatever it may be. A lot of people use it as a defense mechanism and for a lot of other people, it’s not that way at all. It’s, “this is my nature.”

Patrick McKenna:
North American comedy is sarcastic, so it can tickle somebody the wrong way sometimes. Sarcasm doesn’t always go over the way you want it to.

John Billingsley:
As a general rule of thumb, what always struck me is if you make three jokes about yourself first, then you can get two good ones in on the other guy.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s a great rule. Start with yourself.

David Read:
That’s a good one, too.

Patrick McKenna:
Things like, “Why did I marry you?” Things like that.

David Read:
Ha!

John Billingsley:
Self-effacement goes a long way.

Patrick McKenna:
Exactly. Start with that.

John Billingsley:
Plus, I am my own best subject when it comes to jokes. I know all my weak spots; I’m a constant source of self-amusement.

David Read:
You have to be able to make fun of yourself if you’re going to make fun of anything else and stand to look credible. You have to. Especially in British humor, the note that you have to be willing to be, “Yep, I’m not all that. I can be a piece of shit sometimes.”

Patrick McKenna:
Prat, I think.

David Read:
“Oh, by the way, so can you.”

John Billingsley:
Yes. A prat, I think, is a good word. I’ve always liked the English word prat. Have to recognize that you are a bit of a prat.

Patrick McKenna:
He’s a bit of a prat.

David Read:
I like it.

Patrick McKenna:
Don Rickles’ career.

David Read:
Who?

Patrick McKenna:
Don Rickles got a nice career out of it.

David Read:
Oh, wow. Absolutely. How do I wanna phrase this? Can I get a percentage? John, how much of your career has been in the theater? Would you say… 30, 40, 50%?

John Billingsley:
I don’t do theater anymore.

David Read:
You don’t do it anymore?

John Billingsley:
I started in the theater. I pursued theater as a kid. I pursued theater up until I moved to Hollywood when I was 37. I don’t know how many you count your kid years, but 18, 19 years. I have pretty much been exclusively a film and TV actor since. I did keep my hand in the theater for a decade, maybe 15 years, I tried to do a play every year. But honestly, as much as anything, I just fell out of the schedule. You have to be at your peak at 8 o’clock. Then you’re wired at the end of a show and you’re up till 2:00 in the morning. I’m now at an age where it’s like, “9:30, hot milk. Good book.” Even now, going to the theater is, “Oh my God, how long is this show gonna go on?”

Patrick McKenna:
It’s true.

David Read:
Patrick?

Patrick McKenna:
Probably about a third ’cause I started in Second City, that type of theater, cabaret theater, for about 10 years, then television seemed to introduce itself and film and I was able to segue off there. I’ve done a couple plays since but I have trouble remembering lines now and I don’t wanna subject the play to my weaknesses. I did a play a couple years ago and it was very difficult for me. I was surprised. That never really happened, but I realize now that it’s a huge undertaking. As John says, it’s eight shows a week doing that and sometimes two shows in the afternoon and you gotta put the wet clothes back on to do the nighttime show.

John Billingsley:
Oh, the worst. The worst.

Patrick McKenna:
The worst. You’re just so exhausted…and the rehearsal time. Theater demands that you’re there and if you have a family and so on, that can be very difficult to share.

David Read:
For sure. Patrick, Red Green was filmed in front of a studio audience?

Patrick McKenna:
Exactly. Absolutely.

David Read:
OK. I still wanna speak before that. How much do you feel, and John, I’ll get to you in a moment, about how your senses of timing and pacing were attuned in the theater and how much of that carried into your work later? Humor is all about timing. It’s funny for an eighth of a second or a fourth of a second and then that’s it in many cases, depending on what it is.

Patrick McKenna:
The advantage of Second City really was that you’re up live and from the audience every night. You develop your voice to find where that laugh is and your own timing within the improv and so on. I suddenly realized I’m an everyman type humor. I fell into that a lot and I had a bit of a goofy look, more so when I was younger, too. I could play into those roles pretty easy, the Harold character and things like that. I played a lot of characters like I do Jay where he’s sort of the stumbling guy; he’s not in control. I’d play those characters a lot, the everyman, troubled guy. That’s where I really found my voice, and yes, I was definitely able to take that into scripts, going, “what’s the best way I can use my instrument?” It’s this timing. That’s why it worked so easily with John because it was totally a stand-up comedy team, the rapport between us. I understood that rhythm right away and John obviously does, too. It was very easy not to step on each other and let the other person have that moment and “that’s your joke, this is my joke, I’m the setup here.” It was so natural that I think that’s one of the reasons why the episode works so well; is it wasn’t choreographed, it was just filmed.

David Read:
John, how much of your stage background in your earlier years built into your voice as a screen performer?

John Billingsley:
It’s critical. I taught for a number of years and even now, I’ll mentor younger actors and unless they’re just so gorgeous that the screen demands them, generally speaking, I would say, you’ve gotta get your seasoning on the stage. The demand of the work is so great; one, it separates the men from the boys. If you feel like, “I’m pursuing a stage career, this is not for me,” go, get out and leave. Go do something else with your life; you’ll be happier in the long run. If you stick with it, it will give you craft that will allow you to transition to film and TV from a place of deep capacity. I think anything you learn on stage about timing, about listening, about finding out how to not step on the beat. Mostly for me, working with a more demanding text than you frequently get in film and television, so that you can go deeper in your investigatory work about what it is that animates the performance. The trap of film and television is, especially if you’re a character actor, you’re gonna play a lot of supporting and maybe small supporting roles. If you’re on stage, you’ve got a lot more latitude to play the bigger parts. You can actually create your own work and I think that gives you the seasoning that you’re gonna need if you’re gonna have a long career. Regardless of whether you are a comedically gifted actor, I personally have always felt that any good actor can do anything, no matter whether it is drama or comedy because the work is the work.

David Read:
I keep hearing the term “character actor” banded about Hollywood. This is someone that is not necessarily a leading man look.

John Billingsley:
It basically means ugly. They don’t wanna say it. They don’t wanna put it out there and say the ugly ones, but it basically is. Anybody who can stop a clock with their face is a “character actor.”

David Read:
I look at Johnny Depp as a chameleon.

John Billingsley:
Not a character actor.

David Read:
He disappears, he recedes into the performance.

John Billingsley:
He does.

David Read:
The same with Helena Bonham Carter and there’s a connection there. These people, they go away. For me, sometimes it’s, “Who is that? Oh.” To me, that’s a mark not only of amazing either makeup or prosthetics, but an amazing performer because you can’t find them anymore; they’re gone.

John Billingsley:
When I think character actor, I think you gotta be at least number seven on the call sheet. If you’re a six or above, it’s, “Ah, you’re a star.” You son of a bitch.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s a good rule. I go with five.

John Billingsley:
Five, seven, nine. I’ve been number 363.

Patrick McKenna:
I always say to actors, “Try to be at least number three on the call sheet and lower because there you got a little bit of freedom.” If you’re the star of the week, you gotta be the same every week. You’re the hero and that’s your role, you’re the support and that’s your role. But three, four, five, eh, you can fool around a little bit. They write episodes for you, they do this when you’re in a series.

John Billingsley:
Here we get to see that funny cat.

Patrick McKenna:
There he is.

John Billingsley:
There he is. See, now this is comedy.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s good.

John Billingsley:
We have two cats…

Patrick McKenna:
Cat. There’s the cat.

John Billingsley:
This is the funny cat. Are you guys seeing this? Are we on camera or are we just hearing our voice?

David Read:
No, we’re definitely broadcasting this cat piddling.

John Billingsley:
OK. Hey, we’re definitely broadcasting.

David Read:
Left you a gift.

John Billingsley:
He is, as I said, he’s the funny cat. The girl cat would be like, “No, I’m not gonna.” The boy cat is like, “I’m gonna wait ’til the right moment and then I’m gonna come in and take a big dump in the middle of the show.”

David Read:
Now, big cat, now don’t come back and sue us in 15 years, cat. I’m just saying.

John Billingsley:
This is why I have the litter box in this room.

David Read:
He’s having a good time there.

John Billingsley:
You see it. This is the door to the closet, which he thinks he wants to get into, but you don’t really wanna go in there. All right, go ahead. There you go. A referous one, too.

Patrick McKenna:
Having a critic in your room all the time.

David Read:
Did you meet the morning of the first taping? Or did you meet at the hotel the night before? When did you get a chance to say, “OK, here’s the raw material. What’s our game plan? What kind of person are you?” Did you talk before? ‘Cause you’re gonna be playing tennis all week, so to speak.

John Billingsley:
Not at all. I met Patrick in the bar. I think his head was down and he had some martini glasses laid out.

Patrick McKenna:
Was that you?

John Billingsley:
That was, yeah. I fireman carried him up to his room because nobody else wanted to get near him.

Patrick McKenna:
Threw me into the tanning bed and left me there.

John Billingsley:
Left him in the tanning bed and then I went back to my room and it was like, “Why are there just birch leaves here? I don’t understand this.”

Patrick McKenna:
I think we met on the set. I don’t remember if we met the night before at all.

John Billingsley:
I don’t think so.

Patrick McKenna:
I was afterwards hanging out with you, but I don’t remember the night before.

John Billingsley:
No, I don’t either.

Patrick McKenna:
I think on the set, I was just ready to do what I had to do. I was arrogant enough to think the other player will be ready as well.

John Billingsley:
You do think that. In a way, I don’t know that it ever enters your mind. All you can control is your prep.

Patrick McKenna:
That was a really tight script. The rhythm was suggested in it so you gotta hope that the other person gets the rhythm too. With television, boy, there’s no rehearsal. It’s like, “hello, let’s walk and block it and let’s start shooting.” A lot of the early takes, John and I were lucky enough that they were in offices and things like that where we got to at least hear each other’s voice a little bit.

John Billingsley:
My memory is that the first day was not shot completely in sequence, but I think the first day was the…

Patrick McKenna:
The hill?

John Billingsley:
The hill.

Patrick McKenna:
The hill. You’re right.

John Billingsley:
I always feel like we should mention him, the gentleman who was the third stooge.

Patrick McKenna:
Ian Boothby [sic! Randy Schooley]

John Billingsley:
He did not get to travel with us.

Patrick McKenna:
“They took SG-1.”

John Billingsley:
Yet, I suspect he got paid as much as we did, so there’s the difference.

Patrick McKenna:
We had to run a lot on that hill and stuff.

John Billingsley:
A lot of running.

Patrick McKenna:
We were doing a lot of stuff. I think we had so much fun, just the three of us, that it just carried over into the scenes, ’cause that was a fun sequence to do, too.

David Read:
The sand dunes?

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah.

David Read:
May they rest in peace.

John Billingsley:
My favorite scene, even when I go back and watch it, is when we’re beamed into the ship and you start shooting.

David Read:
“If they didn’t know we were here before, they do now.”

John Billingsley:
That did make me laugh quite a bit. I watched it the other day. One’s frequently very dubious about going back and watching things if you’re gonna do a podcast. It’s like, “Oh, Jesus.” Oh, God.

Patrick McKenna:
That was one of those moments where you can improvise a little bit because they just say “action.” We enter laughing, sorta thing. Same with when, I think you and I ran into one of the… I’m trying to think.

David Read:
The Jaffa. “He is sick!”

Patrick McKenna:
“He is sick.” Doing that voice was in that moment and I thought, “Oh, well, they’re not gonna take that.” Then it was the same thing of, “Do that again.” It was like, “Oh, OK. All right.”

David Read:
Oh, geez.

John Billingsley:
Very funny.

Patrick McKenna:
We did that run, we did that probably around seven or eight times as well too, so there’s various takes on what we did.

David Read:
So, you’re encouraged in this kind of a setting to tweak a little bit and massage the funny bits and to try something new?

John Billingsley:
They liked us, I think.

Patrick McKenna:
Very much.

John Billingsley:
They liked our energy together. I think Richard Dean Anderson is clearly cracking jokes all the way through it. To me, he sets a tone that permission is given.

Patrick McKenna:
“Oh, look! He brought Coombs.”

John Billingsley:
I’m sure permission cannot be given to everybody willy-nilly. I think we both experienced this; there are people who are very good improvisers and there are people whose improvisation takes you away from the channel of the story and it becomes self-indulgent. I think that’s where Patrick and I both probably would know that it is always in the service of the story. It can be funny and it can be playful, but you can’t be calling attention to yourself.

Patrick McKenna:
No.

David Read:
Any more than the story requires. If you’re the lead, I would think it’d be OK for you to call a little bit more attention to yourself. My concern would be, “I wanna do something here, but I don’t trust the person in front of me to remember their lines once I derail them so that when they respond, then they can get back on the right track.”

John Billingsley:
It’s not like you get a lotta opportunities in television.

David Read:
What I’m trying to get at is that you have to trust the person that you’re playing with in order to not completely derail the situation. If you’re going to meander a little bit, you have to trust that they’re gonna stay professional, that they know the material, so that if you throw them a pebble, they’ll still be able to execute the rest of the scene.

Patrick McKenna:
It’s nice to do that if you’re doing the take over and over and over, then you both are so attuned to the words, it’s nice. You can maybe throw or change the rhythm, do this, do that. That’s how you find those really unique takes sometimes; you just changed it up enough that you were both listening at that moment and reacted in a fresh way. Sometimes it can help. I’m sure John’s had this too, where sometimes the director may come up and whisper in your ear, “Try this,” and the other actor doesn’t know because they want that reaction in real time. Maybe we were getting stale by doing it six times, or things like that.

John Billingsley:
You really don’t, generally speaking, get to a place in a career where you’re working reasonably steadily and in reasonably large roles with other actors unless you’re very adept at working with whatever comes up. Whatever the rhythm is, whatever you’re being fed, however skilled your partner is, you can make it work. It’s a joy when you feel like you’re given permission to be playful and when you’re working with people who are playful by nature, when you get to feel like, “Oh, so much latitude here.” It doesn’t happen that often.

Patrick McKenna:
It really works best when we have a handle on our characters so well. The improvising is kinda simple ’cause our character only responds in so many ways. That makes it really generous as well.

David Read:
Afraid, terrified, joyful.

John Billingsley:
I did a table read of a pilot that Ron Howard was trying to do, which I thought was pretty cute, about an IRS office and workplace comedy. I felt bad for the writer because they had a lot of talented improvisers who were not reined in, and I don’t know why they weren’t reined in.It was a 30-minute script and it took 43 minutes to read because every one of the improvisers was improvising and it was not honoring the script, it was not honoring the story. It was very self-indulgent and you can feel the air come outta the room. Suddenly what becomes brisk becomes elongated and there was a self-congratulatory feeling in the room. I was like, “I’m outta there. I’m gone.” It’s like, “I don’t wanna hang around here ’cause that was a flop guys.” You don’t perceive it because you’re looking in the mirror and you’re saying, “Wasn’t my shtick funny?” That is the trap. It’s why very, very rarely in television or in film will you be given the latitude because if you’re good and they trust you, yeah, but you can’t trust everybody to know the difference.

David Read:
That’s true.

Patrick McKenna:
We were doing a Red Green show and in the second season they brought in a whole bunch of new characters that were all from Second City and everybody was improvising at the end of the scene. It just never ended. The second season is one now they refuse to air because as John was saying, it got off book, it lost its way. People were auditioning with their shtick instead of doing the show. It was a realization of, “Oh, yeah. Not everybody can do this.”

David Read:
They really won’t air it?

Patrick McKenna:
No, no, they take the second season, it’s gone. It’s like the elevator: there’s no 13, there’s no second season of Red Green. It goes one, three, four, and up to 15, but not two.

David Read:
Wow.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, you gotta serve the material. If you’re good, you can serve it in a lot of different interesting ways. If you stop serving the material and you’re serving your own need to be seen, you’re in trouble, the show’s in trouble.

Patrick McKenna:
I was just gonna say, I remember for our episode, oftentimes because we didn’t rehearse, you didn’t know the energy of the scene until the other character spoke first. He might go, “Jay, we gotta do…” OK, John’s gonna be up here, then I gotta be up here too, and vice versa, how we’re gonna be able to do this. Just recognizing immediately what they’re offering up as soon as the word action comes, there’s an offer from your teammate. I think both of us were able to recognize that right away. We’re gonna start there, let’s go there, we’ll start in the middle. There wasn’t a lot of preamble to us. We felt, I think the audience felt this too, that these guys have known each other a long time. That’s a hard thing to communicate in an episode and that was really a salute to both of us and the show.

David Read:
I think it speaks to your timing as actors. We can give the appearance that these people have been competing with one another for at least 10 years in this space, the scientific community. They have a rhythm with one another and they respect each other to a large degree as professionals. Also at the same time, they’ve spent so much time together that, A, they can almost read each other’s minds, and B, I’m so sick of you, I don’t wanna look at you some days. There is a humor there that is almost Abbott and Costello. It’s like, “Oh, here he is. I do enjoy the person that I sometimes am when I’m with him, even though I sometimes I’m led to hate him.”

Patrick McKenna:
There was such an interesting thing of Jay had the ideas and Coombs was like, “No, but I’ll go with you.”

John Billingsley:
I was watching that the other day, it just happens so fast. That’s the thing that I think is, to me, “but I didn’t even get my objection out and now I’m on the fucking starship.”

Patrick McKenna:
That’s right.

David Read:
I think Simon knew, I think Coombs recognized that if he went his own way, unwillingly, Jay would have more than willingly gone his own way because he’s there to save the team. That’s what I love about this episode is because it’s an underdog story. You’ve got this guy who loves the people that he’s trying to fight for as much as the audience loves them. That’s the thing about this episode that rings true the most. Yes, he is enamored with them, for sure, but he recognizes their purpose as a unit and what it is that they do for all of us. “Savor the moment, gentlemen, savor the moment.”

Patrick McKenna:
That was one of my favorite lines too is when we first appeared, and I said, “I got Coombs with me.” Then he goes, “Oh look everyone, he brought Coombs.”

John Billingsley:
“He brought Coombs.” That made me laugh too.

Patrick McKenna:
That was one of those right away going, “OK, this is gonna be a funny episode.”

David Read:
“We’re on a mission, you nit. We were meant to be captured on purpose.” Oh, God.

Patrick McKenna:
“Coombs.”

David Read:
Any memories of Martin Wood directing this episode? Was this the first time you had both been directed by Martin Wood?

John Billingsley:
First and last. I got a letter afterwards in no uncertain terms saying this will never happen again. I keep it in a portfolio of such letters that I’ve received in my career.

Patrick McKenna:
He was terrific, ’cause I didn’t know him at all. I was living in Vancouver at the time, so everybody was working on Stargate. I had heard of Martin, but I never got to work with him. One of my good friends is Gary Jones, who was the operator at the front there. He was always talking about the show and so on. Same with Peter DeLuise, he was another person I wanted to meet ’cause I’m a huge Dom DeLuise fan. I thought, “I gotta meet his son, I gotta meet this guy.” He was so serious and “there’s no way you’re related to Dom. Come on.”

John Billingsley:
Honestly, I remember Patrick and I vaguely remember everybody else. It’s probably because he’s the only one I smoked dope with.

Patrick McKenna:
Oftentimes too, they were off in Video Village, right?

John Billingsley:
Yeah. You don’t really have that much interaction. If a director feels like they need to shape a complicated performance, you may have a level of conversation that is more extensive. You just felt right off the bat that Martin trusted us and felt like, “Yeah, these guys know what they’re doing.” It wasn’t that he wasn’t present, but I don’t remember having long, searching, agonizing conversations the way you might with a director who’s directing you in Titus Andronicus.

Patrick McKenna:
He was one of the biggest people laughing. That’s a support to both John and I when we’re working, going, “If the director’s laughing, we’re doing OK.” We’re going, “not gonna get in trouble at the end of this day.” He knows his episode is lifting off the page too when he sees people be able to do that with the script and the writer’s excited. I think that’s one of the reasons there was such a big smile all that week. I don’t know how John felt, but I felt, “I’m being treated way too special here.”

John Billingsley:
They were, definitely. Coming from Star Trek, I had a great time on Star Trek. It was great fun, I loved everybody, but they were anal. It was like you could not fuck up. Everything was so, “I tried. I don’t know. I’ll just do it again. That was fun.” It’s like, “Fuck me.” It was Vancouver, one of my favorite cities in the world. The Sutton has one of the best bars in the world. I was a very happy man and it turned out Patrick had dope.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s the advantage of living here.

John Billingsley:
You fly into Vancouver as an American actor, it’s like, “Oh, fuck.”

Patrick McKenna:
You gotta stand around Granville Street for hours.

John Billingsley:
I know.

David Read:
I’ve got some fan questions here to throw at you guys.

John Billingsley:
Great.

David Read:
Some of these I’m going to skip, folks, just so you know, because I’m going to refer to the previous episodes where I had each of these gentlemen on individually and a lot of this was covered. Krisztian Unpronounceable asks about The Man from Earth. For John, I cannot recommend that film enough. It is one of my favorites. It is a sci-fi film that is just six, seven professors sitting in a room talking and a great 90 minutes.

John Billingsley:
And for $8.00. It cost $8.00 to film it. We had one chicken that we managed to stretch out for three weeks at crafty. It was quite extraordinary. We all took turns gnawing on the chicken bone.

David Read:
Patrick, have you ever done prosthetics?

Patrick McKenna:
Yes.

David Read:
Kevin Weaver… Kevin, why are you asking this? I’ll ask it. We’ll go there. Does wearing prosthetics, gentlemen, ever lead to developing funny tan lines?

John Billingsley:
Are you looking at Patrick right now? Are you seeing what’s happened to him? He looks like Satan. That’s all from wearing prosthetics.

Patrick McKenna:
My problem with prosthetics more than anything is they burn your skin when trying to get them off. Latex can be so unforgiving, that kind of stuff. The only tan lines you get are the marks where they’re torn off around here, or peeling off your nose, or eyebrows come off with it, or your sideburns tear off on the other side, or ’cause of the glue they put in there. Prosthetics, I find, are a real pain, but some shows they’re required. I don’t know if, John, you’ve ever done that, where you sit in a chair for five hours and they make a mask of your face and all that and stuff something in your nose.

John Billingsley:
Yeah. The character in Star Trek, I had two and a half hours of prosthetics.

Patrick McKenna:
That when you learn you’re claustrophobic, for sure.

John Billingsley:
It didn’t bother me. Actually, the only thing that bugged me was I had to wear the big fake eyeballs that cover your entire eye for these things.

David Read:
Big blue.

John Billingsley:
If you have any kind of astigmatism, when you’re wearing a fake contact lens that’s designed to make you look like an alien, you really can’t see very well. I couldn’t read and that’s my favorite thing to do so I was left with nothing to do but eat and why I eventually became 350 pounds.

David Read:
That’s why they introduced the hibernation.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, that’s why Doctor Phlox was on a treadmill for the better part of Season Three. “Running, keep running.”

David Read:
Patrick, have you ever seen John as Phlox? It’s beautiful makeup. It’s really quite elegant compared to a lot of the stuff that came before. Nana Visitor always talked about, you gotta be careful about those prosthetics. At the end of the day, ’cause you guys are exhausted, she would rip off her nose.

John Billingsley:
I was number seven, I was not exhausted.

David Read:
After the first couple of seasons, she had a permanent scar right here that she has to this day. You can’t rip off your face man, you have to properly take it off.

Patrick McKenna:
That’s true.

John Billingsley:
Mission: Impossible, when Tom Cruise rips off the rubber head and suddenly, he’s Tom Cruise again. It’s like “I wish…”

Patrick McKenna:
I know. That’s the longest part of the day; when you’re so tired and then it’d take two hours to take the makeup off and you’ll be back tomorrow morning for three hours to put it back on.

John Billingsley:
But you get sofa money, which I always loved because you have to get the turnaround. If it’s too long, you get the equivalent of what it would cost to buy a nice sofa, which is why we have a lot of sofas. The whole house is full of sofas and litter boxes. Every room has litter boxes and sofas.

David Read:
Gabby Federer, “Was mispronouncing the name Felger in the script, or was that an improv by RDA?” Do you recall that at all? I still can’t figure out… I think it’s “Felger,” or is it “Feljer?”

Patrick McKenna:
“Feljer.”

David Read:
It is “Feljer.” Gosh.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah, F-E-L-G-E-R.

John Billingsley:
I could never remember it.

Patrick McKenna:
It went back and forth. It went constantly back and forth. I took it as one of those things some people will do that with other names where they’re not sure. Like my name, they’ll go, “Mr. McKeenna?” Instead of McKenna, they’ll be like, “McKeenna?” “You’re emphasizing the different vowel, but OK, let’s go with that.” I’d be like, “You can’t correct it. Felger, sir. It’s ‘Feljer.'” So many times.

John Billingsley:
I was never sure. Am I Coombs or Combs? Geoffrey Coombs, it took me a long time to not call him Combs, in fact. Now I call him that to irritate him, but that’s all right.

David Read:
Peace Rider, “The Other Guys” is one of my favorites. “You guys were amazingly funny. Did you ever get a moment to make Rick laugh?” It’s only been 23 years, guys. Come on. Really?

Patrick McKenna:
I got to on “Avenger” because I worked with him more. I don’t know if he found us funny, ’cause we didn’t work with Richard that much in that one. It was sort of he was reacting to the couple of us.

John Billingsley:
Just a little bit. I don’t remember particularly. I remember getting a chance to spend a little time with Amanda and Chris and thought they were charming and lovely. As I recall, Rick only worked for three hours on Thursday. They managed to compress all of his scenes into this tiny little box and then he would fly his plane back to Washington or to the States.

Patrick McKenna:
I think that’s one of the reasons we were brought in, was the storyline wasn’t necessarily about him. It was that he could come on.

David Read:
He was beginning to roll back his number of days in Season Six. By Season Seven, he was working three days a week and had one week off per month. They really did gymnastics to make it work for him. When you have a performer like Richard Dean Anderson, who’s a part of your show, especially a show that’s been successful for the number of years that it has and he’s as awesome as he is, you’re going to make it work. I think that they largely did. There were some that, OK, you can drive a truck through this plot hole that they made for him. But the others, “The Other Guys,” I didn’t even consider that this would have been a good chance for him to get some downtime as well. You insert him here and there and we’ve got him, and now we’re moving on.

Patrick McKenna:
He was very generous though, because I remember, I think the first time he saw us was that scene going, “We’re here to save you.” I think his reaction in his eyes was the same thing, “This guy’s gonna play it like that?” It was the first time he heard you.

John Billingsley:
I don’t even remember that. I honestly don’t remember that.

David Read:
“We’re here to rescue you.”

John Billingsley:
I did an episode of Nash Bridges once with Don Johnson. I was supposed to just have a couple of days, and first day, he didn’t show up. The second day he showed up so late we couldn’t film and then they couldn’t reschedule it for another week. It was like, “Hey Bonnie, come up, we just got a free week in San Fran.” God bless number one sometimes. They’re on their own schedule, “Good by me.”

Patrick McKenna:
Plus, Richard was doing MacGyver with the same crew for so many years beforehand. When you’re talking about the ease of the set, that was another reason. Those people had been together for 20-some years.

David Read:
They know exactly what they’re doing. Just stand up out of their way if you don’t.

John Billingsley:
I did not think, which I thought was not unfortunately always true of Star Trek, they took themselves too seriously. I’m not a Stargate connoisseur.

David Read:
You’re right, you’re tapping right into it.

John Billingsley:
Star Trek, sometimes I ended up having conversations with people where suddenly I’m in an earnest conversation. I’m not prepared to be in an earnest conversation. I’ve never had an earnest conversation about Stargate my entire life or about this episode.

David Read:
There are two different things that way. I think part of it is that Gene had set up this whole… This is about ideas.

John Billingsley:
They’re the ether.

David Read:
They’re important ideas, and they are, but you also put your pants on just like everyone else does. I will sit down with Brad or Rob and I will say, “The ideas, the ideas.” They’re like, “Yeah, the ideas were there, but that’s not why we were there.” In Star Trek, that’s why you’re there.

John Billingsley:
They didn’t allow for girls in mini-skirts either, though, I will say.

David Read:
It was the ’60s. Jack, Rick as Jack, will almost literally just turn to the camera and wink every now and again. There is something that resets you into that mindset. In episodes like this, it’s “Yeah, we’re gonna go here and to a few places that we normally don’t and we’re gonna have a good time. At the end of the episode, we’re gonna reset back to a position and we’re gonna carry on.” That was what Stargate did so well. It’s “We’re gonna go way off the beaten path over here, far more overboard than a Star Trek might, but at the end of the day, we’re always gonna bring you home.” Paul Brickler wants to know, “Patrick, what was your favorite Red Green bit that you remember being part of? My girlfriend is a huge fan of the show,” which means that he’s not.

Patrick McKenna:
We did one where we were trying hot sauce.

John Billingsley:
Oh no.

Patrick McKenna:
It said in the script, “Harold comes in and he tries the hot sauce and it’s too much.” That was one of those things we were saying with John, they didn’t tell me what to do when the audience came in, so I tore the place apart. I just went insane with how hot this stuff was. I kept going so long just waiting for them to go, “Cut,” but no one ever did. I tried everything in that room to try and cool down this. I was eating paper, I was putting sand dust in my face and then ran out. I could just hear the audience going crazy. I knew both the actors out there were thinking, “That son of a bitch. He took four minutes to leave the scene.”

David Read:
What was the runtime of the show? 25 minutes?

Patrick McKenna:
It was 22 minutes.

David Read:
22 minutes. The clock is ticking. What do you do because they have only a certain amount of runway left once you’re gone? Are they gonna have to pull something later? What is the process for that in a live studio audience situation?

Patrick McKenna:
I knew they only had two lines, so they can squeeze that in easily. I knew also that there’s an editor. I made sure that if I was in one side of the room, he could cut away to them and I was never in their shot, making sure that I would do all this without ruining the take. It seemed to work out really well because they got it into the show and it was probably about two and a half minutes long, me leaving, which was so much fun. So, that was for me the fun.

David Read:
John, how much of that are you thinking ahead in terms of, “OK, if I do this, I have to make sure that they have something to cut to later on?” Or does that not factor in when you’re in your groove? It’s like, “I’m dealing with the blue eyeballs. I don’t have time for this.”

John Billingsley:
Forgive me, I don’t know Red Green. I’ve done very, very few sitcoms and the ones I’ve done there’s not been that permission given. I can’t think of anything really comparable. I did a movie called Out of Time with Denzel Washington and that was an instance in which I was given a certain amount of latitude, but it was still within a considerably tighter framework. I don’t know that I’ve ever had that opportunity, it sounds like great fun. I’ve had it on stage.

Patrick McKenna:
The show being taped in front of a live audience, to me, was very much like a live performance.

John Billingsley:
My film and TV stuff has not been in any way similar to my stage experience. Stage experience, there were certainly things where you had more latitude to elbow it out, but not in film and TV for me.

David Read:
Perfectly fair. Matt T wanted to know… We’re gonna start with Patrick, which means, John, we’re not gonna start with you. See, I’m wearing these out.

John Billingsley:
I’m gonna go use the litter tray.

David Read:
It’s right there. Put something over the camera though, please. The Jaffa costumes, were they a pain in the ass?

Patrick McKenna:
Yes.

David Read:
Did pieces ever fall off? I’ve worn one, pieces tend to fall off, especially when you start running.

Patrick McKenna:
There is that, and they’re old tires, so they’re really heavy. I remember it was hot.

John Billingsley:
It was hot.

Patrick McKenna:
They put us in these little rubber caps as well.

David Read:
That is horrible.

Patrick McKenna:
Horrible.

David Read:
So much heat comes out of your head.

John Billingsley:
But it was funny.

David Read:
It was funny.

John Billingsley:
It was funny.

Patrick McKenna:
Funny, but I’m a sweater.

John Billingsley:
I’m a sweater too.

Patrick McKenna:
That was a hard one for me: “Wipe them down! Cut, wipe them down.” They were awkward for sure. I kept feeling for the guys who were regulars every week as Jaffa, they were there all the time wearing this stuff. I was going, “Oh, you guys are working hard, sorry.”

John Billingsley:
They had to be serious. To me those things were so ludicrous; they’re ludicrous to look at. “Really?” OK. How can you not get laughs wearing that fucking thing?

Patrick McKenna:
Exactly.

John Billingsley:
With the little silly hat and the little thing. What I liked is that we’d etched it on so it was kind of off-center and it looked like we had a child draw it. It’s like, “I’ll draw yours; you draw mine.”

David Read:
Did you each draw your own?

Patrick McKenna:
No.

John Billingsley:
I think it was getting put on, it’s like “Could you make it askew?” We’d been doing it on the fly.

Patrick McKenna:
Yeah, but they are uncomfortable, they are.

David Read:
Was it magic marker? What was it? I always look at it: what did they find in the pyramid or wherever to… That’s the canon question. We’ve never seen the Goa’uld have anything like that. In practicality, I can’t really tell what it is. I think it’s just magic marker.

John Billingsley:
In any television show ever made there’s a scene in which you’ve disarmed the villain and then you dress up in the villain’s clothes and go out looking like the villain and in real life you would never be able to fit into his clothes. It’s like the pants wouldn’t fit. “This guy was too fucking skinny.” That’s always what I’m waiting for. “That’s like five sizes too big for me.” We just knocked out these two gargantuan guys and we’d be like…

Patrick McKenna:
Had them tailored.

John Billingsley:
Yeah, I had them tailored.

David Read:
This is true. For the top stuff, if he’s extra tall and you’re extra wide in even proportion to the other when you fit it on, “no, it still doesn’t work. OK, very good.”

John Billingsley:
Those are the kinds of things that amuse me and there’s a limit to what you can get away with. I would have loved it if, what if we just don’t fit into these Goa’uld uniforms? It’s like, the sleeves are dragging and the pants are falling down…

David Read:
Erika (Mama Nox) Stroem: “John, did you ever get pissed that you didn’t get to kiss anyone?”

John Billingsley:
I do have a good kissing story. I did a pilot for a show that didn’t get picked up about two teenage detectives and I was the villain. There was a scene in which I got to make out with a gorgeous woman, which never happens for me, and I was bending her over a desk and the desk had a broken leg and there was a grip supporting the desk so it wouldn’t crash to the ground. For various reasons, not having anything to do with me, the take kept fucking up and the poor woman was getting razor burns and the grip was like, “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck.” I was like, “This business is great.” The grip finally said, “I hate fucking actors.” So, yes, I think I had one moment of kissing glory in my life.

David Read:
Jeez. Lockwatcher: question for Patrick, Red Green show, 15 seasons, are you still in contact with anyone?

Patrick McKenna:
I’m in contact with every one of them, absolutely.

David Read:
Wow.

Patrick McKenna:
They’re great friends. When you work 15 years with people, you’re friends. We’ve seen kids grow and marriages happen and divorces and some cast members have passed away. It’s a family for sure.

John Billingsley:
15 years?

David Read:
Yeah.

John Billingsley:
How many episodes did you do a season?

Patrick McKenna:
300.

David Read:
A season?

Patrick McKenna:
No, 300 altogether. Seasons would vary; we’d do mostly about 15 a season, sometimes 12, sometimes 19, but generally about 15.

David Read:
So, they were tighter. You weren’t like, “Well, this was a C-level joke, let’s fit it in for episode 30.”

Patrick McKenna:
No, that’s the advantage of the live audience if the joke didn’t work. We did two shows a night and in between shows we’d work on that, we’d fix that joke and fix it for the second show. We recorded on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Two shows, but there were four takes of them. By that second show you could really play around if you knew you had a first good show. If everyone’s happy with the time, you can play around a little bit in the second show with some stuff to make it a little fresher. It was always 15 guys just having fun.

David Read:
I have a technical question: how often would they combine different scenes from the different hours into the final edit depending on the intensity of the laughter or the quality of the work? Or was it always you pick one or you pick the other?

Patrick McKenna:
That was it, one or the other.

David Read:
Wow.

Patrick McKenna:
We never sweetened the laugh because you had the live audience and the show was that type of show where it was joke to joke to joke to joke. The audience was so dedicated that they were laughing even as we’re just doing the setup. It was a wonderful experience to be in a carnival like that when you’re the rodeo clown in a show that’s just all about funny, it’s like, “Oh.” It’s a hellish place for an actor to be, but it’s glorious.

David Read:
That’s the thing that I dislike about modern television, particularly the Big Bang Theory. Someone walks through the door and they look at someone else and there’s a huge laugh track, and it’s like, “OK, guys. Tone it down.” Even Seinfeld, Larry David and Jerry were big on, “if that laugh did not land, it stays in that way.” They did not sweeten it up at all. John, who do you find yourself most connected to from either the Enterprise cast or the Star Trek pantheon after all these years? Who have you remained in contact with the most?

John Billingsley:
The convention circuit is such that you bump into everybody. I also am a member of an organization called the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. My mom passed away from pancreatic cancer. I work very closely with Armin Shimerman and Jonathan Frakes and Kitty Swink. Manny Coto, his brother, Manny Coto was a producer on Enterprise. His brother, Manny died, his brother, Juan Carlos Coto, we’re quite close. I love Jonathan. On my show, probably Connor, he is a good friend and we see each other a fair amount. But 15 years, I’m still staggered at that level of intimacy. Star Trek as a franchise has been around for a long time and you get to know a lot of folks. My particular iteration of Star Trek only went for four years so I really wasn’t as close to my cast. Having spent time in the Star Trek universe now for 25 years, there are a lot of people I have deep affection for. Nana, we just had lunch last week. I just adore her.

David Read:
Ah, there you go. Gabby Federer, “Patrick, do you think Felger and Chloe are still hanging out or do you think that he screwed that up?” Do you think they’re still working together professionally or hanging out together in each other’s lives after all this time?

Patrick McKenna:
I can think that probably worked for about a year and a half maybe, and then she met somebody quite serious and fell in love with him. Maybe Combs.

John Billingsley:
Chloe Combs.

David Read:
Chloe Combs. I love it.

Patrick McKenna:
I think she would eventually wake up to someone like Jay.

David Read:
Oh, gosh.

Patrick McKenna:
That was that episode where I had to laugh because I got to kiss her in that episode. My wife was like, “Can you not just do a show where you just act?” For some reason, I got this series of I got to kiss the really pretty girl. I’m a goofy-looking guy so it’s one of those things that’s kind of funny that the goofy guy gets to kiss the girl, that’s written in the scripts kind of often for me.

John Billingsley:
There’s a guy I did a movie with recently who is a devout Christian and he will not kiss on camera.

Patrick McKenna:
Will not kiss? Absolutely.

David Read:
They have to work around it.

John Billingsley:
I said, “Could I take the kissing responsibility? I’m an atheist and I’ll do anything.” They didn’t think that would work.

David Read:
John, I didn’t get to ask you about The Orville last time we talked. With Robert Picardo, a brilliant…

John Billingsley:
A show that is a comedy and I did not have a comic beat.

David Read:
I know. Isn’t that curious? My favorite Robin Williams film, other than Mrs. Doubtfire, is One Hour Photo, so still waters can run deep. There may be nothing underneath them too. That scene, the entire episode is…

John Billingsley:
Where Nick can put his hand into a pot of hot water, hot soup?

David Read:
The entire episode is lighter and more thoughtful and then they get to this – Patrick, it’s wild to watch. You think that the show is one thing and it’s completely turned on its ear in this scene with John’s delivery. “Why don’t you use your hand instead of a ladle to take the hot soup out?” Robert Picardo, he forces Picardo’s character to pour boiling hot soup with his hand. My God, it’s one of my favorite episodes of the show, so intense. The cool thing about that episode was you’re absolutely turning conventions upside down in terms of audience expectation. Cool show, man. Really, really neat.

John Billingsley:
Yes, it was interesting in that the gentleman whose name is escaping me. This is why I don’t work; I always forget the names of the directors and the leads and everybody. Who’s the guy behind? Seth.

David Read:
Seth MacFarlane. You got it. It just took a second.

John Billingsley:
Seth MacFarlane, who apparently could do a killer Doctor Phlox impersonation was there every day. He’s a very hands-on producer and I was, “Come on! I wanna hear the impersonation! Give it to me, give it to me!” He would never do it.

David Read:
He did your show.

John Billingsley:
I know. “Come on, man. You tease.” He was a Phlox tease.

David Read:
I’ll give you one if you want. “Yodel-odel-ay.”

John Billingsley:
Given the fact you can’t pronounce my species’ name, I’m not sure I’m gonna give much credit to your impersonation, but all right.

David Read:
“Yodel-odel-ay.” I just did it. He’s talking to his birds.

John Billingsley:
That is terrible.

David Read:
It is. Feezal would have liked it, I’m just saying. Gentlemen, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you both. Getting into the minutiae of what it is that goes behind the building blocks of a scene is cool and talking about the experience that made you both you and then brought you into this episode and what came after has been really special to me. Thank you very much, both, for it. Patrick, anything before we wrap up? It’ll be another 23 years before you see John again.

Patrick McKenna:
No, I hope not ’cause I’m a big fan of his and I just enjoy being around him and listening to him and he’s just a wonderful guy. If they bring us back in some form in the future, that’d be fine.

John Billingsley:
Wouldn’t that be fun? I would love nothing more than to work with Patrick again. That would make me beyond, beyond happy.

Patrick McKenna:
Me too.

John Billingsley:
I hope our paths cross in person someday, my friend, very soon.

David Read:
Guys, you’ve been great. I really appreciate your time. I’m going to go ahead and wrap up the show on this side. Be well, please.

John Billingsley:
Thank you.

Patrick McKenna:
All the best.

David Read:
Patrick McKenna and John Billingsley, Jay Felger and Simon Coombs. There are opportunities that I’m afforded every now and then where I just have to, in this job, pinch myself where it’s like, “My gosh, I’m sitting down with two of the finest comedians to ever share the screen together.” This was one of them and I really hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as I did in leading it with you guys. If you enjoy Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, please click the Like button. It does make a difference with the show and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend. If you want to be notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. Giving the Bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. Clips from this livestream will be released over the course of the next few weeks on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. We’ve got a couple more episodes coming this extended weekend. Just after these guys, I have Gillian Barber coming on, Ambassador Dreylock and a resident in Stargate SG-1, and Shane Meier tomorrow as well. He played a character in SG-1 and Atlantis. My tremendous thanks to my moderators, love you all. Antony, Jeremy, Kevin, Lockwatcher, Marcia, Raj; you guys are the best. Frederick Marcoux at ConceptsWeb keeps DialtheGate.com up and running. My producers: Antony, Kevin, and Linda, couldn’t do the show without you. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate and I will see you on the other side.