Bill Hader on Celebrity Text Chains, Van Halen Brothers, and the Oompa Loompa Union Meeting That Went Nowhere

Bill Hader has been in a group text with John Mulaney and Fred Armisen where they roleplay as the Van Halen brothers reacting to a fender bender. This is not a bit about the text chain. The text chain is the bit. Hader drops this on Tom Scharpling’s Best Show almost as an aside, the way you mention you once dug a grave on a USC student film, which he also mentions, because both things are equally true and somehow equally funny.

The Van Halen bit is built on a single interview Hader saw years ago, one where Alex Van Halen kept interjecting about David Lee Roth’s behavior at the VMAs with the phrase ‘no judgment’ before immediately rendering the harshest possible judgment. The impression Hader does, relayed verbally to Scharpling, is essentially Alex Van Halen calling a press conference about a minor traffic incident that no one attends, with Eddie Van Halen going ‘one at a time, one at a time’ to a room of total indifference. It is extremely specific and extremely funny and Hader is almost apologetic about it, noting that everyone who actually knew Eddie Van Halen says he was the nicest guy alive.

no judgment no judgment no judgment guys work ethic stunk terrible

This is the kind of episode where the conversation never announces where it’s going and somehow ends up somewhere better. Hader slides from Van Halen into Sammy Hagar’s memoir, which he recommends unreservedly, noting that you could apparently tell Eddie was struggling because he would show up to rehearsal dressed like a samurai. Then he’s reading David Lee Roth’s book, where Roth calls the reader ‘Jake’ a couple of times and takes, as Scharpling puts it, ‘the scenic route’ to any given point.

he said that you knew when Eddie was in a bad place when he would show up doing dressed like a samurai

The Oompa Loompa Pitch That Cleared the Room

Hader once had a meeting with whoever currently controls the Roald Dahl estate and pitched a show about the Oompa Loompas being overlooked when Wonka decides to hand the factory to a random child. His read: they built the place, they were essentially taken from their country, they are at minimum indentured servants, and the dramatic story is their reaction to being passed over for a golden ticket kid. The room wanted, in his telling, ‘children in chocolate.’ He was not asked back.

I’ve never had a thing in a meeting go more flat than that

It’s a genuinely good pitch, for what it’s worth. The Wonka IP industrial complex has produced a Timothee Chalamet prequel and apparently several other projects, none of which are about labor. Hader’s alternative, a movie about the guy who tried to fake a golden ticket and got caught at the last second, played by Daniel Craig, also got tossed out. At some point you have to respect a man who walks into a Roald Dahl meeting and leaves with two rejected premises and zero regrets.

Scharpling ends the episode by producing Don Rickles’ actual stage ties and belt, acquired via a listener who won them at an estate sale. The belt is stretchy. The belt is depressing. Hader is invited to wear the tie. He seems genuinely delighted by all of it, which tracks for someone who spent part of his twenties digging graves on short films and apparently never lost the thread of what’s funny about any of it.