Randy & Jason Sklar On Producing “Poop Talk” & Their Innovative Upcoming Project For Audible

As actors, stand-up comedians, television hosts, podcasts and film producers, it is hard to define Randy and Jason Sklar. The duo often referred to as “The Sklar Brothers” first made people take notice when starring in the MTV show Apt 2F in the late 1990s. In the years since, the Sklars have been seen in all sorts of movies and shows, including It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Better Call Saul, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Cheap Seats. Within the radio world, the two have also amassed a huge following among sports fans as a result of their fill-in hosting on The Jim Rome Show.

The latest project from the Los Angeles-based Sklars is the distinctly-titled Poop Talk. A comedic documentary, Poop Talk was produced by the Sklars, who also appear in the film alongside famous friends like Kumail Nanjiani, Nicole Byer, Adam Carolla, Jonah Ray, Jordan Rubin, Nikki Glaser, Pete Holmes, Eric Stonestreet, Nick Swardson, and Dr. Drew Pinsky. Although the Aaron Feldman-directed film arrived in theaters last month, it is now available for purchase via major VOD outlets.

I had the pleasure of speaking with both Randy and Jason Sklar by phone and some of the highlights from that chat are below. Upcoming tour dates and more on the Sklarbro Country hosts can be found online at www.supersklars.com.

We were set up to talk about Poop Talk of course, and first I want to ask about the title. Was there any hesitation on your end about being involved with the project with that title?

Randy Sklar: When it was first presented to us by a friend who we’ve known for a long time – a great filmmaker Aaron Feldman — he wanted to do a documentary about poop. We were like, “I don’t know, it’s not really our brand, it’s not really our sensibilities.” He said, “Think about it and tell me if there is any movie about the subject that you guys could do, how would you do it?” He posed it to us that way, which is actually really smart, so we thought about it over the weekend, talked a lot about it and then came back and said, “Okay, if we had a very real and honest discussion with our funny friends and they’ll be funny about it.

Why is this a difficult subject for people to talk about? Why is it something that everybody does and yet it’s really difficult for people to talk about it? Poop is one thing that kind of gets people talking and makes them uncomfortable or squirm or whatnot. Comedians talk about it in ways, they can be more open about it and really explore all those avenues. He said, “Okay, let’s make that movie.” So we contacted our friends.

Friends like Pete Holmes and Kumail Nanjiani and Eric Stonestreet and Aisha Tyler and Nick Swardson and all these great people. I would say 98 percent of our friends who we asked to do it literally said, “This is the type of movie we want to do.” Then we conducted the interviews and they were awesome. It wound up being better that we’d ever hoped it’d be.

Was there a lot of footage left on the cutting room floor? I’d assume that having that many funny people would lead to a lot of long stories.

Jason Sklar: Yeah, I mean if you put all the footage together, it could’ve made like a two-hour, maybe three… If The Right Stuff was about poop, it could have been our version of The Right Stuff, but about poop.

Randy Sklar: Yes, everyone had a lot to say on the subject. Even people who didn’t want to talk about it at all, like Steve Agee, who’s somebody who’s not afraid to get gross in a stand-up. It’s hilarious, he was like, “This makes me uncomfortable.” We actually felt uncomfortable for him as he was talking about it.

Eric Stonestreet, another guy who was like, “I don’t feel comfortable talking about this. I will probably never talk about this again.” Yet he was so funny and was able to expound on his anxieties about it. I think that was what we tried to get past was the initial stench, if you will, of the subject and to go deeper and try to understand what are people’s attitudes. Once people start talking about that kind of stuff, it just flowed. We could have done 20 minutes on each interviewee.

So is the ultimate goal of the film to just make the topic less taboo?

Randy Sklar: I think by exploring it in this way, I think the ultimate goal is to make the people who watch it feel more comfortable about it. If that’s making it less taboo then so be it. I mean, maybe we’re talking about it the appropriate amount… The truth of the matter is that everybody poops, as we stand in this precipice of where we are in the country and we are very divided, we have to think about the things that we all do that are the same. Everybody poops, animals poop, people poop, Republicans poop, Democrats poop. If we can all just understand that we do do somethings together, maybe that’s the beginning link to us coming together in a way when we’ve been so divided. Not to make it political, but hey, that is a start.

I know you guys have produced before, but being that in this case you produced by putting everybody together. How does that make you feel about doing another documentary regardless of the topic?

Jason Sklar: You know, it was such a positive experience. I am inspired, I mean, I hope the movie does well, and by “does well,” I just mean I hope it reaches a lot of people. If it does and there’s sort of a little bit of a clamoring for another topic or another type documentary of this type, we would definitely be open to doing something like that.

Randy Sklar: I agree, Jay. I think we could explore another taboo in a way that again reaches to people in and tries to take a difficult subject that people don’t talk about and see if we can make it palatable. The other thing is if you’re laughing about something, which I think you know the movie to us makes us laugh every time, your guard is not up. Your guard suddenly comes down and then you become a little more forthcoming which I love.

Jason Sklar: Yeah, it opens you up.

Beyond Poop Talk, is there an upcoming project that you guys are allowed to talk about or promote at this point?

Randy Sklar: Yes, actually two things that are upcoming, one we don’t know where they’re going to land…

Jason Sklar: So let’s just promote one of them.

Randy Sklar: We’ll just promote one of them, and one of them is a project we’re completing it’s called Sklars & Stripes. It’s an audiobook for Audible.com. Basically whenever we go do stand-up in a town we try and write material about the town that we’re in and what they’re experiencing. The first five minutes of our act we are trying to do that, so we set a challenge for us in 10 cities that we went to over the course of 13 months that we would try and write 10 minutes of material in every city that we’re in. The plane lands on Thursday if it’s a regular club date and you have five shows and three days to try and write 10 minutes of material by experiencing as much of the city as you can. Talking to the locals, finding out what they’re dealing with, and then write that material and hopefully you connect with them, it’s a great challenge and basically you follow us to document as we go through it.

Now the crazy thing is, our first weekend that we did it was in San Diego the weekend after Trump won the election, and then it followed the next 13 months which is the most tumultuous year that this country has experienced…

Jason Sklar: We went to like seven red states. So there was a year where most people retreated into their own echo chambers and bubbles. We stepped out of Los Angeles, which is a very blue bubble, and we had to interface with all sides. Our attitudes were that we couldn’t avoid listening to what people had to say, and then at the same time we had to put forward what we were feeling emotionally. We had to take risks with our own sort of political views depending on when we did our shows and what was coming up for that town and what was relevant to the current political moment.

Randy Sklar: So it was really cool to document this crazy year, and then we’re going to take six minutes of stand-up from each city and make a comedy album called Sklars & Stripes and release that.

Was that concept at all influenced by the They Might Be Giants album called Venue Songs?

Randy Sklar: No, I don’t know about that. I mean, it kind of is somewhat similar to Sonic Highways that Dave Grohl did on HBO. I loved it. Of course They Might Be Giants would do something innovative like that. We’d never heard of that.

On Venue Songs, They Might Be Giants wrote a song about each tour date, which they compiled into a DVD/CD hybrid release.

Jason Sklar: I love it, that is unique to the venue itself. Ours is a little different in that we’re trying to get a personality of a full city but like totally similar. I think this is what’s interesting about it, is that it’s as much a documentary about these 10 cities as it is about the creative process. How do you start with the observation that then becomes a sort of funny thought that then becomes a polished piece of stand-up comedy in only three days? It was a very huge challenge, one we always felt like in every city we rolled into that we’d never be able to do. We pulled it off in every city, and we’re very proud of it. Between Sklars & Stripes and Poop Talk, those are two really weirdly personal and special projects.

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Tags: Aisha Tyler, Audible, Eric Stonestreet, Jason Sklar, Poop Talk, Randy Sklar, SklarBro Country, The Sklar Brothers

About the Author

Darren Paltrowitz Darren Paltrowitz is a New York resident with over 20 years of entertainment industry experience. He began working around the music business as a teenager, interning for the manager of his then-favorite band Superdrag. Since then, he has worked with a wide array of artists including OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mike Viola, Tracy Bonham, Loudness, Rachael Yamagata, and Amanda Palmer. Darren's writing has appeared in dozens of outlets including the New York Daily News, Inquisitr, The Daily Meal, The Hype Magazine, All Music Guide, Guitar World, TheStreet.com, Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, and the Jewish Journal. Beyond being "Editor At Large" for The Hype Magazine, Darren is also the host of weekly "Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz" series, which airs on dozens on television and digital networks. He has also co-authored 2 published books, 2018's "Pocket Change: Your Happy Money" (Book Web Publishing) and 2019's "Good Advice From Professional Wrestling" (6623 Press), and co-hosts the world's only known podcast about David Lee Roth, "The DLR Cast."