#58 Dave Noll : Insights from a successful TV producer

Dave is a two-time Emmy Award Winner, two-time Gracie Award Winner, and he won the coveted James Beard Award for Best Television Series: CHOPPED.

Dave is also a fiery and insightful keynote speaker whose unique look at the business world, light-up-the-room storytelling, and tangible, practical tips have thrilled (and inspired!) audiences from Los Angeles to Miami to New York.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, pitch, big, shows, worked, diller, years, crazy, movies, called, network, thought, create, tv, chopped, money, mtv networks, watching, netflix, survivor

00:05

Hi everyone, I'm Aaron master Pietro joined alongside Michael Benatar and you're tuning in to call me crazy The show where we interview inspiring entrepreneurs and game changers like today's guest, Dave Knoll, who is a two time Emmy Award winner, two time Gracie award winner, and a winner of the coveted James Beard Award for Best Television series chops. Hello. super impressive. We're really excited to have on Dave, welcome to the show. Welcome. Call me crazy. That was very cool. Thank you very much. I'm gonna make my mom listen to that and say, Look, see I have done something. Yes, yeah, we were so excited to have you on. So I mean, the chopped is a huge show. But tell us how you got into, like, take us way back. How did you get into television, because I mean, real quick, you don't know much about us. But I went to film school. A while back, I did that at all. I came out here to be in film, and ended up actually doing commercial photography. So it's like kind of the same direction, just a little bit different format. But I'm excited to talk to you and see how you got into it. I what I say to like college students when I talk to them, or groups of interns, or whatever, or really anyone starting out is, if you're interested in TV or film,

01:22

you have no idea what you want to do you just yeah, I mean, if you think you do, you don't. I was 100% agree. When I was in school, I was like, it was so much different from when I was in school to when I came out into the industry. I didn't I was like, Wait a second, this is what it is. I couldn't believe it. And there's so many different types of jobs, there's so many lanes you could find yourself in. And so what I say is just your trust me, you know, unless you're Steven Spielberg, or you know, unless you've had a vision to be a film director. But I was like, if you're the next, Steven Spielberg, it's very easy to tell. You have 10 short films by now. That's he, like you have to be everyone has a phone, don't tell me you want to be a director and you're definitely going to be Spielberg. Unless you have 10 short films that you can show me then Okay, maybe, maybe. But really, if you're interested in TV or film, that there's the cool part is, especially if you're in Los Angeles, or especially if you're in New York, there's so many potential jobs, and there's so many different lanes to go in. And I say just try to aim yourself as close as you can, to what you think your future is going to be. But I had no idea when I got I went to American University for film and television, and I didn't know it did I want to get into movies, I don't want to get I had no idea. And I just

02:55

kind of fell slash tripped into an internship at MTV Networks. And that led to I worked, you know, I worked as hard as I possibly could. And that led to a production assistant job and then an associate producer job and then a segment producer job. And you just saw I was there for seven years. And you just work your way up the ladder, and you try to learn as much as you possibly can from the great people, the geniuses that are around you. And eventually I found myself.

03:25

I became the What about this guy? What about what if I did this? What about this? What about this? And it was, I bet I was pretty annoying.

03:36

And they would you know, everything got turned down. But I kept saying what if we did a show like this? What if we did a show and I think after I kept doing that, and then kept developing the shows and fleshing them out and presenting, you know, here's an actual, it's not just an idea that I had, you know, walking to work today, but it's an actual fleshed out 10 page thing. And they kept turning those down and kept turning those down. And then eventually, they said yes to a couple of shows. And it was the most amazing, you know, thing where all of a sudden, you're overseeing this group of people for this show idea that you actually came up with inside your own silly head. And it was awesome. And then Luckily, I was working for this genius bill brand at the time, who then went on to work at lifetime and now works

04:28

for like cruise ship line. I don't know how that happened. But he's like, literally was a genius. Bill pulled me aside and said, you're creating shows for, you know, VH one MTV, and that's it's not really how the system works. It's you're, you're doing something that you shouldn't be doing. He's like, they'll take your shows and it would be great but then you're like the guy you know who creates post it notes if the show takes off. You're not going to benefit from it in any way. What you should do is

05:00

His pitch shows from the outside. And he said, look, I think you're good enough to do that. And I think you'll get shows on there. And it was amazing of him to say, and I will thank him every time I see him, which I do.

05:12

Because then I was able to come home to my wife and say, Bill Brown says, I can do this. It's a little risky. But what do you think? And luckily, she didn't, you know, luckily, we were both naive.

05:26

So I didn't realize how crazy it was. And she didn't realize how crazy it was. And so we were just crazy enough to do it. And so you gotta be just a little bit of crazy and then you get

05:36

the hell out of us. shows about 100% that's why like, literally when I saw it was called Call me crazy. I started a business like Cleveland, I feel because so cleaves the woman that I create shows with now.

05:50

She basically I found her and she was doing the same thing at oxygen. The network she was there for seven years, I was at MTV Networks for seven years. She was the Hey, let's do this show person there. The What about this? What about this? And I was the What about this person at MTV? And, and we met each other but was a crazy now, we talked about how we were both crazy. When we started off, we talked about how crazy lucky we are. We talk about how crazy blessed we are when anything goes right because every successful TV show is a complete miracle. And it doesn't make any sense. Every story is different. Not all of them are crazy. And so when I saw that your show was called calling me crazy. I was like, these are my people. I love it was what was I don't know the industry as well, obviously. What was what was crazy the fact that you guys wanted to pitch outside the network you worked in, and you were approaching other people. So weird about you coming up with your own stories. the crazy part about TV is it seems like there's so much television, right? There's it, you know, there's content everywhere. But the reality is, there's 1000s of us who create TV shows. And there's really, I've been saying this for years, and I swear it's still true. At any point in time. There's basically 40 buyers. You know, Fox is one of them. And Netflix is one of them. But 10 years ago, Fox was one of them. And there was other you know, there were cable networks that are now gone. Or there's always kind of been syndicators, but there used to be six of those buyers, and now they're really only down to three or four and fit the game changes a little bit really at the end of the day, there's only 40 buyers. And in a given year, some buyers only buy two things. And some buyers buy 20 but but there's basically just not that many yeses, and there's 1000

07:51

every one taken Yeah. Was there any frustration at the beginning when you first started now because just for me when I got here to LA the world was so different. It was a more it felt I don't know, in a weird way like high school and business met and you kind of have to know people to know to get over here and there is like a chain. Like you know this guy you're interning here and you're gonna go over here and you're gonna work over you maybe do a little that Loulis. Was there any frustration because I had a lot of frustration doing it. And I also did radio where I interned for years before I got on the morning show and I worked my way up that way. But the internship thing really does work. But there always is frustration. I just wonder when you were over there at MTV, how

08:37

I was crazy, in that I stayed there for seven years most people

08:43

like, but those of us that were there. Whenever I see that, like, you know, whenever we see each other whenever we see each other at conferences, or when I'm pitching to the it's always like giant hugs. And because we all survived the same things. So in that way, I was really lucky. And I didn't you know, you don't realize it at the time. But I was really lucky that I stayed as long as I did, because that there's a camaraderie we have. And we all learned in the same way. We all it was a time, you know, in cable, and it specifically at MTV and Vf one where they would say, Hey, we need this show. We need it done by Friday, can you in a group of people go out and shoot it on the street, here's a host and get it in the Edit room. And I mean, we were crazy. We would work all night and stay in the Edit room all night long. And then you know, you'd go to the diner in the morning and then pass out in the Edit room and then go and do it again. You know, and then get the show on the air by Friday at five o'clock or whatever it is. And it taught you like 75,000 things all at once. And you didn't even realize what it was teaching you at the time. And so yeah, the industry

10:00

is all about who you know and who you've worked with before. But the like the insane lucky part is when it says is Bill saying that So, so I said to Bill, so how do you do it? And he was like, well, you need to know people. But the good news is, he's like at this, you know, at that point, Viacom, MTV Networks had basically for five places you could sell to MTV, VH, one Nickelodeon Comedy Central. Maybe they had the CMT. At that point, I can't remember. But within the first year, I was able to sell a pilot that never made it anywhere to the h1, a pilot that never made it anywhere to MTV, a game showed in Nickelodeon, they kind of made it on the air. And then, and

10:48

I sold my brother is an actor and a comedian. And we actually sold a talk show, called the Chris Wylde show starring Chris Wylde to Comedy Central. And that was my first show that was like real Joe 10 episodes. And again, it's the same thing I learned so much on that show. Both its success, the fact that it made on air was a miracle. And then its failure when they called and said, we're not going to do anymore. And you look around and you're like, Oh, my gosh, I have my career.

11:23

There's nothing left over, I can never let this happen again, shoot

11:28

pitches like when when you were pitching the shows, because I never was at that point. Whereas pitching I've heard people talk about the pitching. Is it like, you know, for us, when we're pitching where, you know, we got a deck, we got all these presentations, we're explaining it, how are you going in there? Is it just a phone call, like, hey, john, I got it, I got an idea. Let's go, it's probably shockingly similar.

11:50

Like, really, I have a good friend who is an architect. And he pitches buildings, like giant, either

12:01

academic buildings, or in you know, or skyscrapers or whatever. And he goes in with the, you know, a model of the building, right. But other than that, it's this plan. And it was so funny, he was walking me through what he does. And like literally all the different beats to a pitch for a new building. And I was like, Oh my gosh, other than you going with a, you know, a scale model of a building, or I go in with a tape of a new show that maybe we have a sizzle reel for for other than that it's exactly the same thing. Like, there's the oh my gosh, how are you guys doing part of it? There's What have you been working on part of it? There's the you know, then you have to sell and you know, you have to get the pitch down to the essence of what makes that show completely amazing. They have to do it don't do any other show, do this show, then you have to answer a whole bunch of questions. Often like today, we were pitching NBC, for instance. And we were walking them through the deck for the show. It's a 15 page deck that we worked crazy hard on. And then they asked a bunch of questions. And then afterwards, you're like, I think it worked. Maybe

13:16

it was great. And then Luckily, Cleveland, I have been doing it for so long. And then there's a you know, the the half hour discussion afterwards, where you're picking apart like when she said this was that?

13:30

I know. Well, it's good to know, at least it doesn't change too much. Like I always thought it was so different. But I guess we're all on the same page. We all pitch, we all question it. We're working on a big pitch right now, where it'll be a little different today. We had as I say this, like 15 page deck that we went through with gorgeous pictures, and we agonized over it for weeks.

13:49

The next pitch we're going to do has a sizzle tape. It's not like it's like two minutes long. It shows exactly the beats of the show. And you're basically saying, you know, to Netflix, or Fox or ABC or whoever. This is why you have to do this show you, you know, have your 20 shots this year. This has to be one of them. I guess this is more like inside baseball. But I was I was wondering, has the price of a show gone up to purchase these because there are bigger players in the field? Like I know Netflix has, it seems like unlimited money. But is that something that has changed at all, like the prices since you started? That is a great question. I've done a lot of podcasts. No one's asked that. And it's very it's a smart question. The

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there was a moment thanks to Netflix, and then Amazon and places like that where all of a sudden, there was more money and there were and there were bigger numbers. And we would laugh laugh laugh laugh because in cable the room and that's where we started right like the first shows I sold were MTV VH one Comedy Central and then HGTV and Food Network and

15:00

Those TLC those kind of places. And its own, you know, and then and then eventually Cleveland I moved up to we sold the show to Fox and we showed the show to CBS, NBC and that kind of thing. But in the cable world, the question is almost always, how can we give you less money?

15:20

Always too late for 15 years, or whatever it was 10 years? Yeah. Everyone, every meeting every single time, every show, every deal, every pilot, every series was how can we do this? For less? How can we do it for less, and then all of a sudden, you'd go into places like Netflix,

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or Amazon, or now, peacock, or, and then even then ABC, CBS, they're all following. All of a sudden, they're saying, How can we make this bigger? How can we add more money to this? And you're like,

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this is amazing. Yeah, we should add all the money, what amount of money do you have, we can spend it all seem kind of reminds me of like, you know, Silicon Valley, like startups in the back in the day, or even how we started, we were totally bootstrapped. We did any everything with no money. And then you hear about the companies that are getting VC funding without $1 revenue, like, let me give you more money, millions of dollars to grow. It's like, what is that how, you know, like, such a different trajectory, like, you know, the Netflix and VCs of the world, or, you know, unicorns versus like, you know, just hardware, sometimes I would say the cool part is right, that whether you're doing what you guys are doing, or you're selling TV shows, or you're, you're an architect, or you're selling boxes, whatever it is, we all do have that same crazy lunatic spirit of today. We're like, I wake up every morning and I'm like, I know, today, I'm gonna fail. It does it multiple times, probably, but at least once. And that's if I'm doing everything right. That's like, like cleaver, cleaver, we just this happened the other day. We're cleavers, like, people haven't passed in a while, you know, we're gonna get like four passes today, right? Like, it's gonna happen. So let's, and she was right, by the end of the day, we were just laughing because like, there's like passes coming from left, everyone's passing on everything.

17:22

And, but what you're hanging in for is the one call where they're like, Hey, we really love that idea, we want to move ahead. And you're just like, you know, if you get that five times a year, or, you know, in a good year, 10 times a year. It's amazing. It's, and what's and then what's truly crazy about TV is then everything fails to like

17:46

we've we figured out very early on, Brandon tartikoff, who ran NBC, like back in the day, like cheers, like he was a legend at NBC. He said, even if you have the best show ever, you're gonna probably have to pitch it 30 times, because you're going to you know, in the beginning, you're gonna mess up the pitch a little then you perfect it, then someone doesn't have the money, they don't have the time slot. This person like kind of likes it when it's not for their tastes. Or he's you know, he's like it's TV so it could be like they love it, but then the person down the hall doesn't love it or the marketing team doesn't like it or they go home and their aunt doesn't like it like you just don't know if you're gonna have to pitch that thing 30 times and then once you get a deal, only one out of every four or so actually makes it to television. So those other three you're gonna fail with and then once you get on the air, our ratios like one to eight that actually succeeds and and the other seven shows only make it a season where they limp into season two and then they fall apart. But so what you're waiting for is the chopped or we haven't a game show called America says that was on the Game Show Network and in two and a half years they've ordered 450 episodes and that's just that's what you're waiting for every day. But it only happens once every 10 years so

19:12

I just real quick before I have a question so I you know I was big into TV I watched a lot of it you know last Breaking Bad all this. They said it was like the golden age of TV. What age are we in right now? With TV and all the network you know the peacocks and Netflix the whatever else there is the hulu's It seems like a different world now because it's not as consolidated I guess I don't know if that's everyone's watching this because you always say like we used to all tune in when we all watched live. That was that was like something we all did. Yeah, there's nothing like that. It's so the Golden Globes are on the other day, right? And then and it was like apparently no one watched it was I didn't watch. Yeah, exactly. And that used to be something that 30 million people would watch and I don't know what the number is down to now, but it is a time

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of upheaval. But what's great about TV is that even though and again, maybe this is because I'm a TV entrepreneur, and I just don't ever see the negative.

20:14

But to me, it's, it's as much TV has changed whether it was like, there used to just be four networks. And then there was cable and cable exploded. And ESPN was the number one network. And now, there's all these streamers. And Netflix is the number one network. But you know, no matter what, though, at the end of the day, there's going to be shows that hit whether it's for a big Mandalorian is a big audience show, you know, or Game of Thrones was a giant audience,

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or their shows that are Nisha, it's like, as I said, Game Show Network that it's one of the top shows for women, probably over the age of 50, whatever, whatever niche you're trying to hit, there's always going to be hit shows. And there's always going to be crazy people like me who like dream up shows and think, Oh, this is going to be that hit, this is going to affect someone in a positive direction. And that network will then give us a whole bunch of money for years to come. And we'll be able to give jobs to you know, hundreds of people for the next decade.

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And that's so yes, there's a ton of upheaval right now. But at the end of the day, everyone's looking for a headshot. We spent four years Cleveland I working for Barry Diller, who is a billionaire Titan of industry. He ran he started the Fox network, and he ran ABC and he ran USA, and now he runs IAC, which is a tech company, imagine calm, and Vimeo and all these other companies.

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And the he was just a genius. And everything he said was insanely smart. And he loved us because we were pitching. We were the TV people in this building filled with tech people, and his roots were TV. So every once in a while, once a week or so he would come in unless he was like, on his yacht somewhere.

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is amazing. He but when he was in the office, he would wander in and say, you know, what's your new show? And we always had a show that was totally ready for Mr. Diller, you know, that were like the artwork was on the walls that, you know, like ready and had a logo, it had the artwork, we were ready to go. And then he would either like, you know, nod and you know, that's really smart. And then you would like want to run around and set like, celebrate. Or he would be like, That's terrible. That's awful, and then walk out. You're like, okay, but

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the dude

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basically pointed us in the direction of

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television can go in so many different directions. You can have, you know, these small shows, or you can have the next survivor Wheel of Fortune, American Idol, the voice America's Got Talent. And he basically said, I don't ever want you to talk about a show again. Unless you and cleave was the two of us, unless the two of you can see a clear path to $100 million. I don't. I don't want to talk about a $5 million show. I don't want to talk about an $8 million show. Yeah, clear path to $100 million. And that changed our whole life but changed everything. Well, how do you get so how does the show get to $100 million? That just ad revenue basically like

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that's the crazy part. If I it has been

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the the sales team at Food Network. I knew I had no acquaintances with a person who works there. And he basically said, If you knew how much they made off of chopped, you would drive into the ocean, you would you would kill yourself.

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Because that ad revenue runs the whole thing. Right? Like Yeah, or, or America says, Game Show Network. Just yesterday, I forget what day it is. or two days ago, started airing America says 66 zero times a week, 60 times a week a week. So that's how successful that show is. So for them for their audience. People love it.

24:24

So it's on. Like if you flip on Game Show Network at six o'clock, 637 o'clock, 738 o'clock. 830. And then they flipped over to reruns of Family Feud that they don't know. And they have to pay, you know, they have

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our show they own outright so

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60 episodes a week and then in every show, right? There's three in every one of those episodes. There's three commercial breaks, that's 180 commercial breaks. They're making they're doing well is what I'm telling you.

24:55

But what I'm talking about is the production money. So what what Diller was talking

25:00

About was, if you have a show like America says, just Game Show Network, we won't get to $100 million. But so far there's been a good as I say, 450 episodes, that's a lot of money, right?

25:16

There's now discussion about it's, instead of America says Italy says Australia says France says,

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that's how to get to $100 million.

25:30

And that was in the original pitch, right? Because Diller has trained us so well, that we know, look, this is the type of game show that in success, you can

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produce those around the world.

25:44

So for decades, with shows like that, say, Does it ever get syndicated to another network? Do you make do they make money off of that as well? Definitely. We had a show work. When sanity went to Netflix.

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America says what went into syndication and has been seen all over the country. It's gone into Canada, I think, but I don't even know that for a fact.

26:11

That so it's that type of trajectory that can make a lot of money. Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. I, I never really thought about it. Because you're always like, how do all these shows make so much money? It makes sense. Just how big Can you get it worldwide, though, is again, it's so similar, right? When you guys are starting a company. Your goal isn't small profit, right? Like your goal is you would like that company to be wildly successful. And to last, after you're gone, right? Like Merv Griffin, the TV host created two shows that are still on the air wheel of fortune in jeopardy. Same guy created two game shows, and he is no longer with us. But those shows might be with as long after we're all gone. It's great. Yeah. And that's really, as I say, the similarities or my friends who, who, you know, designs buildings. His whole goal is to design buildings for long after he's gone. And that's the, when you say Call me crazy. If you have to be that crazy to think, Oh, I'm going to create a company that my kids could run someday or my grandchildren or whatever, you know, who knows what can happen? And that's the Yeah, we're all just trying to create brands right? Create a franchise that can live beyond I know, you know, we knew right away chopped was really, really good. But did I know, you know, it was gonna be on 10 years later, and there was going to be chopped junior and chop Canada, and chopped all stars and chop sweets. And no, my this is a totally like, this is an amazing story. My my middle daughter, I have three daughters. My middle daughter, Sophia went to a birthday party. This was probably, I don't know, six years ago. So. So say she was maybe even longer say she was like 1011. And she was like a precocious she still is very confident kid that's people really like adults really like because she's very confident and very personable, and just a delightful child. So she goes to this birthday party, and we don't really know the parents very well. And

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my wife goes to pick pick her up. And the mom said, Oh, hello, you know, how, you know, how are you? And she was like, Sophia was great. Although I did want to tell you one thing. It was a little weird.

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We had a chopped birthday party. And Jen was like, laughing and she's like, you know, so it was like we had the kids and we met made a basket of things. And they each made ice cream sundaes.

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But, and I wasn't there but my wife was like, she had a look of concern on her face because she was like, so Sophia told everyone that her dad created chopped, and she said it like so you're gonna have to talk to this little

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wire. Yeah, she totally thought it was a lie.

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And Jen was like, actually, he did. And the lady read it.

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Like she

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doesn't make any sense. So it's, it's you when you're creating these things, you have no idea where it's gonna lead. I never thought Sophia would go to a chop party someday. That's so funny.

29:38

Good people always say you know, think big when they're trying to come up with their next big idea and like here you are sitting in front of your Emmys you came out with chop like and you're telling me one of your tips is don't ever think big like explain that to us. When we say don't think big. It's because what Diller not necessarily even talking

30:00

But but but illustrated to us through everything he said. It's that we're all trained, whether we like it or not to actually be small thinkers. So when we think big to somebody like Diller or somebody like Bob Iger or Steve Jobs or Oprah, to them, it's it's, it's, it's tiny, like, even though we think we're thinking big to them, it's laughable. So, we, we were we started with Diller. And we started with Diller in the summer. And that fall, we had what we considered we had worked a miracle, we sold a show to a very big cable network. And it was right. And they bought immediately we had a talent involved, and they immediately bought eight episodes at $600,000 an episode. That's great. Exactly.

31:01

to us that was thinking big, right? Like, we didn't get a development deal, we didn't get a pilot, we got straight, we'd only been working for this guy for four months, five months. And so what used to happen, when we worked with dealer is once a month, we'd go into this enormous, very scary boardroom with his team, because the lawyers and the accountants and the desistance and whatever. And I it was my job, one of my jobs to go in and present. You know, here's what we're doing. And that day, I was like, on top of the frickin world, right? Like, I was 100%. I'm gonna go and we had done all the research, we were like, we know what our ratings going to be. We know if this last for two seasons, here's how much money we're gonna make. This is amazing. I didn't get a development deal. You know, we got a couple of those, probably we but if this isn't a pilot, this is like eight episodes. $600,000 I dressed impeccably, my wife was like, Wow, you're impressive.

32:06

I glided into that building that day. I was we had these presentations, you know, just like a stack of paper. Yeah. With the with the binder clip. And so it got to my time to talk. And I was like, Well, let me tell you, let me tell you what I did. So I was like, so Cleveland, I created this show. We signed a talent right away. Look at us. We're amazing. I was downplaying it, you know, but in my heart, I was like, clearly, you know, you're gonna fire up the band or whatever. Yeah, it was years after Yeah. And I went through the whole presentation with a big smile on my face. And he's going through the papers and whatever.

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And he's, he doesn't say a word, nothing. And he said at the end.

32:56

So, so why are we doing this again? And I being you know, a normal human laughed, and I thought he was I literally thought he was joking. And I was like,

33:09

I see you want to know the numbers again? This is to know, I don't know, call me crazy. The podcast well enough. Can I curse on the podcast? You can do whatever you want. Yeah. So he, he said, Why are we doing this? I told him, he flung the packet of papers across the big giant, scary boardroom table. And I can still hear the glide of the binder clip, but along the table as it slid towards me to this day. And he said, it's a fucking lemonade stand. And I was like,

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what, like, and then he outlined to the number almost exactly right. He was like, I know this talent. I know how long the show's gonna last. He's kind of hard to work with the last two years. But let me give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe this show will last three years.

34:06

Because it's so talent focused, you're never going to be able to sell this overseas, they're never going to be able to sell this overseas. It'll never go anywhere beyond those three years. So you brought in X dollars, congratulations, we will make as a company over the course of the next three years. And he gave us a number it was like $2.5 million.

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And he was basically like, what are you who gives a shit? Like, tell yourself what that's not why I brought you in.

34:35

I brought you in to create franchises 100 million dollar shows that can go around the world forever. And you're bringing me something that's gonna fail in the next few years. And that's what's the one we say don't think big. It's really just you have to remind yourself that you're a normal human and you thinking big is insane. It's that's where the

35:00

You know, the 10x thing? Now think, times 10. Now think times 10. Again, that's where real people who really know what they're talking about the billionaires, that's what they're thinking, and you're going to compete, at least for what we do. We're competing against people that good. So if we're thinking small, it's gonna, you know, it's gonna be small. And do you think this shift in mindset with thinking, you know that much bigger? Does it change the course of TV forever? Because now everybody's like, well, let's go after not saying like, let's go after the money, obviously, everybody wants to get paid. But does it change the type of television that we kind of get a little bit on different networks? Because you know, like, the NB C's like they're going like we're watching Mr. Mayor, right now, we think it's a great show. Probably. It's a funny, silly show, and the LA folk very la get out of it. Maybe it's not gonna be a franchise, but we're like, well, this is a silly show that we could kind of watch. And is there still a place for those little shows, I guess definitely is and that because those shows are like the office is one of the biggest Yeah, Money Making sure. In the history of television.

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sitcom sitcoms, dramas are different than what we do. Yeah. And our goal really is Wheel of Fortune survivor, or even, there's a show called come dine with me, that was the biggest money making show in the world for like four or five years. And in the US, no one's even heard of it before. But it was in so many countries. And because of the nature of the show, it was on five nights a week in the UK, in Germany, and Scandinavia, in Australia, all these different places. And it was just an enormous moneymaker. And so that's the other thing too, is one of the things we say all the time is you really have to do the homework, if you really want to succeed in a big way.

36:55

At least in television, you need to know as much history and as much of what everyone's looking for as humanly possible. You have to just exhaust yourself with watching different new formats watching new shows, just reading constantly variety, Hollywood Reporter deadline, what are people looking for? What are people doing and then going back and saying, you know, chopped, came from this dating show called eliminate from back in the day? I remember that. Yeah, remember that show? They go on like three dates, and then they get one of them gets eliminated? Right. That was it was really it was a woman and she's dating four guys. Yeah, she would eliminate them. Right one before every commercial break. Chopped is essentially eliminate, but the cooking version. Yeah. And that's why, like, you need to know is you ever need to have as much knowledge as possible. No matter what you're doing, we would say, What are you watching right now? Like, what are your TV shows that you're kind of into? At the moment, I have three kids. So we will love the Mandalorian. And now we're watching one division. Yep.

38:00

And then like, what, when the pandemic started, we were a movie family. We've got 1000 plus DVDs, and I've had them forever. And so we started, there's five of us. We started each night, not every night, but say three, four times a week, a different person picks a movie, and everybody watches it. And then we all read it on a scale of one to 10. So we've got this insane list of now. 170 movies, and then every movie rated on a scale of one to 50 because each one of us does, you know gives our 10 points. Yeah. And the top scores 50.

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What are the top ones right now? What are the top three in the family? That you guys like? Well, anything that gets 15 is hard. Because learn, right? Is that like, any one of us is like, I'll give it a nine and then all of a sudden that's it. You can't but there's so many movies that like Die Hard still gets everybody right.

38:58

Everybody Aaron wants you for the first time like two years ago on Christmas. I'm either watching on Christmas, I also have a really bad memory. So if my parents are listening and you showed me this when I was younger,

39:10

because my mom

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we were a die hard family. Aaron What Do You

39:18

Love Actually, we all love that was okay. What else came up? I mean, I was just curious because those top three I wonder cuz that's like a real, like the fan like a 47. Like, what's a 47

39:29

people get so mad because I'll put it on Facebook. So every once in a while, I'll say All right, here's the latest, or whatever. And so Princess Bride got a 49 Whoa, we're like offended.

39:43

We like that one. That's the one the holiday one right? No, no, not the print. I think that's an old one. Right? It's like, right. Yeah, it's it's a love story. Yeah, watch it nights and whatever. And so we popped in the Princess Bride and everyone was offended. But love actually got the 50 Yeah, that was it.

40:00

Good one. Well, I think the rating you're on to something with that rating system, because whenever we go to pick a movie Michael's like 20 trailers in and then we're like we give up.

40:08

The decisiveness that you guys have, we do have a rating system for the wine we drink, we have a little page and every time we have a bottle of wine, we take a picture of it, pose in front of it, and then lay like right down, one through five or one through 10. How we liked it, some notes about it. So if you ever want to buy it again, it's also kind of fun to look back because then you're at this I have this a much lesser version in my phone. So that way when I go store, I'm like, Oh, I know. Jen really likes this. This is this is my wife. Yeah. I never even thought about it like that. I was just, I just thought about it for fun. Like they go back and look. Oh, yeah, that was a good one. Maybe we should go buy it again. I actually can share it with you. It's our it's a notion. I don't know if you use notion at all. Oh, no. Yeah.

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Yeah, it's her whole life in notion. You've got a recipe box, we manage dope dog in notion. It's our project management system. And today's like, Oh, my new websites now a notion that it's really cool. That I am very my kids laugh because I am very much like a number and charts person. Like I chart, what I everything's charted and rated. And but I haven't done one yet. Or you got to do the wine, the wine is fun, because it is fun looking back, like, Oh, we had, we had wine at this restaurant, we're taking photos with the bottle that when I open the pictures really,

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really like this one.

41:28

Like the one I wanted to ask you, what is the theory of one click, that's what I wanted to get to.

41:35

The The other thing it took us years to figure out is that if you think of a bull's eye,

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what we find is if you're going to almost any buyer, and we now that we've talked to a number of people in other industries, we think there's a lot of industries that are like this, if you're hitting the bull's eye, exactly. If they say we want ABCDE and you're giving them ABCDE, you're probably pitching something that's very similar to what they get all the time. And so that's, you know, really inside the box thinking, right? And then on the other hand, if it's crazy outside the box, thinking you'll never sell it, like, it's too hard for people to understand. And like, you have to anchor people in something. And then you have to give them so. So the one click basically is like, here's what the perfect show pitch is. There's this show, and it's a hit show. It's a flippin monster hit. And here's the one thing that we're gonna bring, that makes it completely different. And that is the new show. That's the one click and it can't be a little, it can't be a half like it has to be one substantial click. Our favorite example is when last came out. You guys were talking about loss, right? Yeah, love loss loss came out in 2004. In September, I'm almost positive, but 2004. And when it came out, everybody said you've never seen anything like this, this. You've never seen anything like this before. It was an hour long primetime series on ABC with a really diverse cast. And if you picture that billboard, there's this like, 35 year old man with chiseled features and brown hair standing in the center. And then there's like a big African American man, and he looks concerned and there's like a cranky old guy. And there's a,

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like an adorable blonde girl. And then there's like an athletic brunette lady. And it's a big diverse cast on an island. And everyone said, You've never seen anything like this before. But what we know because we study television, and we believe deeply in the one click is that for years before, in the year 2000, there was a show, and it was an hour long primetime television show. And if you looked at the billboard, there was right in the middle. The lead was a 35 year old chiseled man with brown hair. And next to him was a concerned African American man, there was an old guy, and an athletic brunette, and a cute blonde girl. And that show though the big that show was called survivor. And it was a reality show. And then four years later, it's called loss. And it's a drama and that's a big difference. Right? It was a reality show. Now it's a scripted show. But those shows if you're really examining the first couple of the first seasons and what they're promoting, they're promoting the same show. Oh, it's amazing.

45:00

thought of it like that? Because the way it Yeah, cuz it's the same show you're on an island you got to survive. And then there's some like mysterious things going on. Yeah. And elements yeah on survivor, they're voted off every week and on lost, they're dying, they're dying.

45:16

Oh, the thing that totally blew our mind as we were, as we realize that and kind of were like examining how close it was, is that not only is the lead a 35 year old like I think they were a year different the lead of last when they started shooting versus probes on survivor when they started shooting, I think one of them was 35 and one of them is 36. But the crazy part is on on survivor right? His name is Jeff it's a four letter word that starts with J and on last His name is jack, it's a four letter word starts with J not even the names have changed really thinking that it's like supplemental report 20 years later. Wow. And that formula

46:00

in showbiz is everyone says like even

46:04

like Shakespeare would borrow things from different people Star Wars, certainly, it's complete genius. But if you look at the movies that Lucas was borrowing from, you're like, Oh my gosh, she literally ripped that off. That's crazy. But but instead of like an old Samurai movie, he turned it into a sci fi movie and there. And that's kind of where the one click the other one that blows our minds is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, right? Because obviously, it's the biggest giant

46:37

franchise entity ever. Right? Like, it's amazing. And if you go back to the start, Iron Man, the first movie, what people say is, it's a miracle that all worked and like, how is it possible that you know, Iron Man, which wasn't a really popular character at all, was so popular. And yet if you analyze it, like down to the to the beat of what was promoted

47:06

Iron Men, you know, is a billionaire. playboy who then puts on a suit. The, you know, the star was Robert Downey Jr, who was a, a questionable choice. And everybody talked about how shocking that was. There was an older Oscar winning actor, Jeff Bridges, who plays the bad guy. There was a blond leading lady. And if you look at all those beats, it's exactly the same as Batman when Batman came out it Michael Keaton instead of Robert Downey, Jr. They both play billionaire playboys who dressed in crazy costumes

47:47

whose parents were murdered, like the whole thing. It was jack nicholson, and then it became Jeff Bridges. It was you know, the both had the blonde famous actress in the love interest role. And so I'm not seeing you know, that Kevin fyGi and Marvel ripped off Batman, I'm saying they looked at that and they were like, okay, that works. Let's, let's do exactly the same thing. But you know, the big twist the big difference of Iron Man is that he loves his life and he's having a blast versus Batman who's like brooding and dark. And so instead of like blacks and grays, Ironman is gold and red. And you know, it's, it's so it's very, very different. But it's also almost identical. In a lot of ways. This is a silly question. But why isn't the DC Universe working the same way more of what is happening with them? What? Me and my brother and I growing up were huge, enormous DC fans. And now my brother and I are huge, enormous Marvel fans and we cannot and I just think they really got caught up in the hall.

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are heroes are gods.

48:58

And there were their modern myths. And really, at the end of the day, don't we all just want to have fun when we watch a superhero movie like there are people out there who want the like heavy art you know, like Logan was great that that was an example of but that character is so fun. And you you've had movies and movies on Jackman as Wolverine that were so fun and then it went serious. Does DC movies are so bad sometimes I will

49:26

say if you want to watch a new Superman and Lewis on CW Oh, I thought it was fantastic because it's there dealing with Superman's kids his teens, so it's a lot better there's like something to ground him a little bit and those shut like the flash show I've seen

49:43

so much fun. I love it. I love every episode The Yeah, the flat. Yeah, all that the Flashpoint, everything. It's great. I watched with my two younger daughters like we love it. It's it's a fun show. But like the movies, not so much the DC movies too much

50:00

But it's my my brother he's like always like it's too much yeah what are they trying to do too much so I'm I'm excited to hear where you go with our million dollar question because I think every time you get your movie pitch you're always like oh it's like a call me crazy story but we always ask our guests What is your call me crazy story in your life or your career were you know you were called crazy that you did something maybe even thought you did something crazy. Like that was a little crazy. Yeah to be called crazy. Yeah. craziest thing is pitching shows. It's

50:31

everyone in once you do it more you meet the other people who are successful at it. And are in unscripted I'm talking about the the people who are successful in scripted usually are these great writers, right? The Shonda Rhimes, or the Norman leaders like these legendary writers, but the people in unscripted who creates shows and who are the people that really produce a lot of these shows, the more you hang out with them, the more you're like, we're all a little bit crazy.

51:03

Even the people who look normal, you hang out with them, and you're like, Oh, she's great.

51:08

And I think it's that, like, tech, like if you're if you're creating a new app, or if you're creating a new tech company, or you have to have this kind of like, insane confidence, which is weird for people who know me because I'm not the kind of person who like,

51:28

you know, had a lot of friends in high school or had a lot of friends in college or went to a ton of parties or whatever. But when it comes to business, I've kind of always had this thing of like, well, let's shoot for the fences. Let's just try to create the biggest show ever. And maybe one day it'll work. And that's the funny part about Diller right, because Diller was basically like you're not even close. You think what you think is big is pathetic. It's a fucking lemonade stand was so great. Oh, back can be crazier. Exactly. He's literally like go crazier. Go crazier. Because in Bob Iger, his book, I don't know if you guys have read it yet on the bookshelf. Oh my god. So when he says, The craziest things that things that you never thought would happen, sometimes? The the way, it's just a few phone calls away, right? And reading that book, I've never read that book like three times and underlined it and highlight it and like whatever, that I feel like that's my whole life. My whole life is like creating a game show where someone orders 450 episodes. It'll never happen. It doesn't happen. Like it just is very, very rare. And yet we managed to do it one day like insane. Insane. That's wild. Well, we appreciate you coming on David. They this was this is fantastic. Like everything about the stories you were telling. It was all great. Also, you have a podcast, right? I forgot to mention a brand new game show podcast called victorious. If y'all are interested in trivia, if you love game shows, but you also love podcasts. It has crashed those two things together. It's a one click it's like listening Wheel of Fortune.

53:12

And you play along you pause and like, oh, maybe I'm gonna go try the answer. This way it's designed is you can listen and yell out answers and you know, similar to Jeopardy, I guess or family feud.

53:24

Your as a listener, you're supposed to just Can I beat the contestants? And so far at least people love it. And yeah, we're absolutely thrilled. Our host is Matt Iseman from American Ninja Warrior.

53:39

nicest guy ever, insanely smart. And so it's weird. He's actually like kind of producing the whole podcast as he plays this game. And we give away cash we If you win, you get $1,000

53:52

and so it was a it's an amazing experience. That'll be a fun one to listen to with somebody else together on a podcast together I love that all the comments are like car ride car ride car

54:04

with my girlfriend in the car I listen to my buddy in the car like whenever I'm in the car with this enjoy. I would love to create the ultimate let's plan a trip Michael road trips.

54:13

Where can everybody follow you on social maybe seeing your you know a topic?

54:18

That has been a big deal lately. But um, and so I'm just Dave Knoll, d A V and o l l or Instagram. All my TV exploits are at Dave Nall TV. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you guys. It was such a pleasure to meet you. And you too, are so awesome. I've now read way too much about you because I thought you were so cool. The whole company. Cool. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on.

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