-You know our next guest from her work
on "Saturday Night Live" and such films
as "Sisters" and "Wine Country."
You can see her and Mo Willems
in "The Storytime All-Stars Present:
Don't Let the Pigeon Do Storytime,"
which is streaming now on HBO Max.
Please welcome back to the show
our very good friend Rachel Dratch.
-Hi, Seth.
-Hi, Rach, how are you?
-Hi, good. How are you?
-Good. It has been far too long since I've seen you.
And it is always just a delight to lay eyes on your face.
-And you too, though I was told to look up at the lens.
-Yeah, if you ever feel the need to just, like,
take a little peek down. -Give a little glance at you.
-Let's each take a little glance right now, ready? Here we go.
Ooh. -Aw, hi, Seth.
And back to the screen dot, okay.
-I was really happy.
The last time I saw you doing something live,
you appeared on "SNL."
There was a little return of Debbie Downer.
And Debbie Downer was, like, ahead of the curve
as far as how bad things were going to get.
-Well, kind of 'cause -- so, everything was so bad then
that, like, a lot of my friends are like,
"Oh, you should do Debbie Downer."
so then Lorne let us do a Debbie Downer,
And I came in with, like, a big mask,
and it was like... [ Laughs ]
And then, like, that was a Saturday.
And then literally like three days later
the whole world shut down.
That's how fast everything happened.
And then I was kind of like, "This isn't funny."
So, anyway, but at the time, you know,
there was a lot of tension afoot and all that, so yes.
-We forgot that Debbie is one of
the overlooked horsemen of the apocalypse.
[ Laughter ] -I think so.
-When she shows up, bad things happen.
-Debbie's got her finger on the pulse of
all bad [bleep] -- stuff happening.
-Yeah, I like that the bat signal for Debbie is
"things are so bad, we think we can throw
a sketch together for her."
[ Laughter ]
-Exactly. Exactly.
And now it just writes itself every day.
-Yeah, exactly.
Everybody says Donald Trump sketches write themselves.
Really, I would argue Debbie Downer are the ones that are --
-For sure. -What was the last --
I know you are a great supporter of the theater and Broadway.
What was the last thing you saw live?
-The last thing I saw live --
I saw the musical "West Side Story."
Oh, also Poehler and I went and saw Hall & Oates
'cause I was on a -- I was on a big retro,
like, you know, high school music thing.
-Where did you see Hall & Oates?
-At Madison Square Garden with Squeeze.
-Oh, that's fantastic. I mean, you --
I mean, you guys have always presented as the Hall & Oates
of comedy, you and Poehler.
-I think Poehler's not gonna like it that I'm, you know,
saying that Hall & Oates was the last concert she saw.
-Oh, yeah. You think she wants something cooler out there?
-She wants something edgier, you know.
No offense to Hall & Oates. -We should say that after that,
she went down to the East Village and saw some, like,
death metal -- Nordic death metal band.
-Yes, Nordic death metal, that's cool.
-You went home but she went out.
-I went home and had some tea, yes.
-Eli -- I cannot believe your son Eli is 10.
-Just turned 10, yes.
-So you, like many parents, are having to usher his way
through Zoom school, I'm sure? -Yes.
So we had, you know -- like everyone,
we had a big chunk of that in the spring,
and it wasn't easy, like everyone says.
But I got to the point where, like, you know,
his homework became my homework.
So I'd be like, "Oh, no, we have to do math today."
And then, like, he would get these extra art assignments,
which just made my heart sink because it's like,
he's not gonna be cutting a cereal box to make a basket.
Like, I'm gonna be doing that.
So I really started to dread all of the extra art projects
'cause I'm not that good at that.
-Do you think that Eli is aware of that?
And that, you know, there's a --
it's contagious that your dread then transfers to him?
Or would he have dreaded it anyway?
-No, I think we have mutual -- you know, we are a mutual --
we'd pass the hot potato of meltdowns, school meltdowns.
-[ Laughs ]
-Sometimes it was me, sometimes it was him, yeah.
-I know one thing that you have used to maybe
avoid the meltdowns is video games.
I think this is something that
you are allowing Eli to partake in. How's that going?
-Right, okay, so, last year I had a pretty good system down.
I was like, "You can't play video games during the week,
during school week," and I was pretty proud of myself
'cause for the most part he stuck to it,
but then all this happened.
Then that all went out the window.
And he became very into "Fortnite," which I didn't know.
I just want to like -- moms of young kids, like,
if you can avoid "Fortnite" at all costs,
it is like heroin to kids. -[ Laughs ]
-So it has a lot of addictive qualities.
At first I was just opposed to the guns.
Then the guns just become secondary to the addiction to it
'cause it, like, keeps them on it.
So we've had a lot of conflicts about trying to tear him away.
But it's, like, also the way that they talk to each other.
He can talk to his friends, so it became a social thing.
-That's sort of how you're justifying it.
It's the socialization. -Yeah. Exactly. Yes.
-It's like, yeah, my -- you know, I don't want my kids
to take heroin, but that's how they see their friends.
[ Laughter ]
-When you put it like that, it doesn't sound so good.
But yes, that's basically what it's come down to.
And now he plays a lot.
-It seems so long ago now, but when this first started,
some of my first guests, after we shut it all down,
were Poehler and Maya,
and we were talking about the talent show.
I know sort of the "SNL" women of that era,
your kids did a Zoom talent show.
Is Eli -- Does he have characters?
-Well, he does, but what happened was Abel just wrote up
a sketch and handed him a script.
Abel is Amy's son.
Abel wrote a political sketch.
I think Eli was playing Elizabeth Warren.
And Abel was -- shoot, I forget
who Abel was playing, but it was a guy.
But, anyways, so they did some political comedy.
-Gotcha. How was it? -And meanwhile Ana's son
did magic, and Maya's kids had some, like,
sort of fencing, sword fight thing.
Anyway. And Tina's daughter did gymnastics.
So a lot of different talents happening.
-Yeah, that's a very -- I mean, that's, like,
bang for your buck-wise, if you can get fencing and gymnastics
and sort of like trenchant political commentary,
that's a really good show.
-Yeah, that's not happening anywhere else on the Internet.
-I think Mo Willems -- if you have kids,
you know exactly who that is.
And if you don't, you wouldn't have any reason to.
But he's a wonderful storybook author.
And you did a live performance of his show.
Was that -- And this is, again, in front of a live audience
before the world turned upside down.
Was it so much fun? -It was a lot of fun.
-Yeah.
Did you -- Did Eli come?
I feel like that would be friendly to a --
-I know. He didn't come. -Why not?
-I don't know. He didn't feel like -- It was in D.C.
-Oh, okay, that's fair.
-He didn't want to take the trip.
Then I wish he'd been there, yeah, okay.
-I mean, you would think, you know,
for a kid who does political comedy,
he'd like a trip to the nation's capital.
-I know. He would. Well, maybe he'll have to watch it, yeah.
-I'm sure when you were gone,
he didn't take advantage of his video games.
-Probably, yeah.