MIKE: Steve Hytner aka Kenny Bania plus Comedian Ron Funches

We are really excited about tonight because you probably know him as Kenny Banya from Seinfeld, but comedian Steve Heitner is here. Now we have another comic on. Ron Funchess is in town. I'll tell you where he's going to be performing, but Vince and I just love Seinfeld. I'm so excited about this. Oh my gosh. I hope he's nice because you know you never want to meet your heroes. Kenny Banya is with us. We're going to give the definitive answer on this. Is soup a meal? I mean, that would be a meal, I think. Even if it's ramen? It's hearty, yeah. Barley. What did Elaine say? Was it a consomme? Did you crackle crackers in it? All right, so we're going to do the first half of the show dedicated to our favorite Seinfeld and roll the clip of one of our favorite episodes. According to the New York state, you are the ass man. You are the ass man. Ass man? No, these don't belong to me. I'm not the ass man. I think there's been a mistake. What's your name again? Cosmo Kramer. Cosmo Kramer, you are the ass man. I'm not the ass man. Well, as far as the state of New York is concerned, you are. So here we go. Let's get to reality instead of just art like that. 77-year-old Nancy Strito, there she is. She got her license plate from the state of California and it says, it's three letters, S, Q, Z, and then the letter A and the numerals 55. But obviously it looks like squeeze ass. Yeah, it does with a big orange in the center. Freshly squeezed, baby. Was that a peach? Anyway, she lives in Pompano Beach, Florida, and the Broward County official said if she's really upset about it, they'll give her new plates. So she asked everybody in her retirement community, what should I do? 90% of them said, keep the plates. As far as the state of Florida is concerned, you are the squeeze ass. So she says, she's getting honks when she's driving around. Honk? At 77, she enjoys a good honk. That was another Seinfeld episode. Remember when, what was her face? Got the eye job? Estelle got the eye job. I can't cry. I can't cry. So anyway, let's get to it. Steve is here. Can he ban you? Yeah. Next. You think you can give me a hand with my material? Why do they call it oval team? The mug is round. The jar is round. They should call it round team. Steve Heitner is here. This is such a pleasure. Welcome. Oh, thanks. Good to see you, man. It's great to be here. I was checking out that young man. How many years ago was that? Uh, that was 1994. Wow. So when you're out like running around Philadelphia, I know you were in Emmaus earlier. Usually people say, oh, you still look good, but you didn't, you didn't go that way. No, I learned not to say that. God, you look good for your age. You know that crap. When people see you like in Philadelphia where you were in Emmaus early this evening, do they ask you to say certain lines from Seinfeld? Yes. Only if I walk out my front door. But once I do that, and here's the thing, I don't mind. Look, it's, it's a good thing, right? I don't mind the gold. That's gold. Jerry soup's not a meal. I mean, the character had a lot of catchphrases. Yeah. Here's what I don't like is when I, it's a question that I have to answer like, Hey, do you ever get that suit back? Like, you know, it's a fictional program. Did you ever get that? It's a fictional, I'm huge. But it kind of changed your life, didn't it? Yeah. Uh, tremendously. I mean, I am fortunate. I've done a hundred films and TV shows and uh, Seinfeld is an 800 pound gorilla. Yeah. You know, and, and in a good way as well. I mean, I still make very nice residuals, uh, from my side really after all these years, the show is just on, but you have done a lot of work. You had a really nice career on so many films and TV shows, but I know you've told the story, but could you please tell, tell it one more time about the audition for Kenny? Yeah. What did the casting call? What did the, you know, shot sheet or whatever they call it? Yeah. First of all, it said is the most annoying person in the world and you know, typecast, how flattering it is. It's like, well, we got to get Steve Heitner shut it back. So the thing is I had auditioned for other roles on the show. So they were interested in me and I was doing almost every show at that time. I was doing, you know, friends, two and a half men, Queens. I was doing all those shows, but we couldn't quite find the right role. So I'm in the room waiting to go in, in the waiting room. And I still don't have a full feel of what I want to do, but I hear people doing the audition and they're doing very angry because you read the script and it's, you know, Hey, you owe me. I gave you that suit. You owe me. And people are doing it angry and I can't help it here. And on a dime, I was like, well, that's can't be funny for that long anger. So I said, what if he's annoying? Because he adores Jerry. Awesome. Right. And then everybody would go, well, that's what the character was like. No, all it said was annoying. So I made the decision. So just imagine Larry and Jerry in the room hearing for an hour or more people doing this angry thing. You take a chance. Right. And I walk in the door and I go, Hey, Jerry. And they lose their minds because they had been hearing so much other energy than that. And as soon as I did that, I was like, I think Jerry literally fell off the couch. That's fabulous. I got. So was it supposed to be a one time hit? Yeah, it was only going to, it was only gonna be one episode. Um, what actually happened the following week, they were, which had never happened before or since, I don't think they were unhappy with the script at the table read and they scrapped it and they had wrote a whole new episode and I had just done my episode. And so, uh, Jerry was like, no, we're writing a whole new episode and put home man. So I was in the next week to follow up on the date or the dinner. So that ended up working out that I was on the very next episode. Jerry loved the character. He would jam me into episodes, but a lot of times I wouldn't, it wouldn't make the cut because timing, right? Like the soup Nazi. That's a perfect example. If I wasn't in that episode in the middle of the week, Jerry was like, Oh, call Steve. We're going to have Banya cut in line. So did you shoot that? Yeah, I showed, I came in the middle of the week. To me, when people talk about all my catchphrases, the one I love is so stupid is on the soup Nazi one. I see him in line. I'm trying to cut and I go up to him. Oh, Jerry, I didn't know you like soup. Who says a thing like that? So that is, there's a piece of tape that exists in some little locker somewhere of you saying that line. It's in the episode. Oh, it is in there. I remember that one at all. Yeah. And I thought I remembered every single moment of time. There you go. It's in there. You remember that advance? Yeah. But they even brought, I mean, like I, when I think of the character, like you were in way later episodes, like the mentor episode is not 94. You're way later. No, I'm in season six, seven, eight, nine. And probably the biggest line of that's gold. Jerry gold is in season nine. Yeah. That was a, and actually you get into the, into the game of it early on. Banya always repeated things the best, Jerry, the best. And then that got a little tired. So we let it go. So then four years later, when we got to that's gold, Jerry, I said, let's bring back the repeat on that line. And it worked. So it's just a small change. I said, Oh, Jerry, God, the way you smile as bad. Yeah. Well, it's the big eyes and the, you know, apparently you got them too. I know because ever since that started to air in their early nineties, whatever people say that I look like you. Yeah. That's wow. What a feeling that must be. Oh yeah. There you are. And there I kind of see it. Yeah. I've seen it. Yeah. I've seen other photos. There's a photo in the green room where I see it even more, but man, that's gold. That's gold. Yeah. That's fine. I find that picture in the green room. I don't know which was probably pretty obvious. Is many's a real place? Uh, yes. Many's is a real place. And an odd little story is when we, uh, did the finale, we were getting offers of where we were going to watch it. Right. And I took an offer from, uh, New York, a big event. Uh, they flew me first class, paid me lots and lots of money just to show up and watch the final episode there in New York. Mendy's contacted my agent and they wanted me to watch it there. And they were offering dinner and my agent was like, uh-huh. And it was soup. And apparently they were unhappy. They felt like they were a big part of my... Oh, well, yeah. Well, let's roll the clip and remind everybody, uh, Mendy's. Uh, you know what I think? I'm just going to have soup. Yeah. I'll save the meal for another time. What other time? I had a hotdog earlier. I'm not that hungry. This is the dinner. The soup counts. It's not a meal. You're supposed to buy me a meal. I'm not stopping you from eating. Go ahead and eat. Get anything you want. But I don't want anything but soup. The nuts, the meal. So here, I want the definitive answer now. Here is a bowl of soup. Yeah. Is that a meal? All right. I don't know if we needed a bowl of soup for the question. And it's hot. This is high production value. Okay. So I don't have a... But here's my answer to it. Somebody once said, um, it's kind of like salad. Is salad a meal? It can be. Yeah. Like a chef salad. Chef salad is a meal. So then it kind of gets to what's in the soup, like pho, right? That would be a meal. So I don't want to say I'm overthinking this. Did you crumble crackers? That's what I was going to get to. That basically gets to what they did on the show. Did he crumble crackers in it? But you know, so I think it kind of depends on the magnitude of the soup. But I will tell you this, I cannot order soup in a restaurant. Because I just like, what are the soups like? Yeah, that's what I want to do. Promote myself. This is really, really an annoying question. Were you really a 40 regular at the time? I was. Yeah. I absolutely was. Yeah. You know, and that sweater, that sweater I was wearing, that crazy sweater, I actually got in an argument with, not an argument, but a disagreement with wardrobe. Because I was like, look, it's a funny character. He doesn't have to be in a funny sweater. I know I get that. Yeah. Right. I don't have to pronounce. A little on the nose. Yeah, a little on the nose. But they were like, no, no, no. You know, Letterman had that rule too. He wouldn't wear funny hats. Oh, is that right? Yeah. That I'm funny enough. Yeah. We don't have to tell the crowd, oh, here comes the funny guy. Other than Seinfeld, what are you like, proud of in your, you've done all these shows. What is your favorite experience that wasn't Seinfeld? I did a series on NBC while I was doing Seinfeld called Working with Fred Savage and me, and Dana Gould, and a couple of, Martin Maureen. I loved it. It was two years we did it on NBC. It was kind of a prequel to Scrubs, where you have dream sequences of what was happening. I loved doing that show, but also I did a film with Clint Eastwood. So just that moment of, yeah. And of course he's the icon that he is. He couldn't have been kinder, never reached for my name after learning it. And I have scenes with him where we're screaming at each other. What's the film? In the Line of Fire. Oh, of course. Yeah. That was great. John. John Gould. Wasn't he in the burying? He would sit in holes or something. The comedian? Yeah. Yeah. Sit in holes? I thought, wasn't he a Seinfeld character at one point? You bring right back over here. Dana's a great standup. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Were you a standup when you went to the audition? Well, I had already done some in New York, but I was an actor first. You're right. Yeah. But then, you know, in New York, it was hard to get work and then standup blew up and all these stages and my friends were like, you never shut up. Why don't you try that? And so I did. So Emmaus, this earlier this evening, you're going to be in Sewell and Margate. Right. Right. Okay. So what do we think? We'll see one of these guys. I see it. This photo really gets it. It really is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, those are three good looking men. And here's Meghan Markle. Hey, Meghan. Yeah. There you go. Good to see you. Congratulations. We'll be right back. Okay. We found this science film clip that Steve was talking about. He was on the episode with the Soup Nazi. Right. Okay. Roll. Hey, Jerry. I didn't know you liked soup. Hard to believe. This guy makes the best soup in the city, Jerry. The best. You know what they call him? Soup Nazi. I'm not letting you cut in line. Why not? I do not remember it. He named the guy. I know. Gosh, that was great. Okay. From one comedian to another. Here's Ron. Do you know what they think is a treat in the UK? Something called a jacket potato. A jacket potato is basically a large baked potato covered in toppings like baked beans, cheese, and often tuna. Yeah. Like what a dog gets for its birthday. Good to see you, man. Good to see you. Welcome back to Philly. That's bad. That's bad luck. We look like we just sold a car. So you got three shows, huh? Yeah. In Philly. Helium. Helium at the club. We got to see Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The Saturday early shows sold out. Friday early shows almost sold out. So come on by. What do people want to hear about? What do they want to hear about? I don't know. In 2026. I don't really care about what they want to hear about. I just tell them about my life and what's going on with me and what I feel is important. And I hope, I'm a big believer of don't give an audience what they want. Give them what they didn't know what they needed. Really? That's interesting. That's great advice in life. Thank you. Yeah. Your delivery is, I've tried, like, is, are you exaggerating the way you normally speak? Because I feel like your delivery is different than. Than how I'm talking now? Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I feel it's very much similar. Do you? Okay. It's always a little exaggerated. But slower. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It depends. And I mean that there I was more stoned. How bad are you now? Not like a two. You're a two out of ten. Yeah. Not a three. Okay. What did you, you've done a lot of voice work. I like how you say voice work. He's signing that we actually have a huge. What was the first, was it Trolls? Was that the first big gig? That was the first big one I did was playing Cooper. Cooper. Yeah. Troll who poops cupcakes. Yeah. And from that I've been able to do a lot of fun things. Whether it was Inside Out 2 as Bloofy and that. And then I'm in a new show that's coming out on Netflix called, with the deal with the Clash of the Clans. So I used to do a lot of voice acting. It's, you know. My voice itself is kind of unique. And to be able to take that from something that people used to make fun of me to something now that helped fund my career is a beautiful thing to me. Okay. Remind me of when did they start making fun of you? When I was from ages four till now. Till now. Even today. Even today. Yeah. We've already made fun of it. Yeah. We're such bullies. So what did you do about it? I just kept being me. I couldn't have a choice. I couldn't really change my voice. You know, sometimes try and make it deeper, I guess, if I wanted to go on a date or something. Would you like to go out? Yeah. I mean, see how low can you go? Hello. How are you today? I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger. I could do it well because I just did a movie with him. Did you? Yeah. How was that? That's why I just came back. That's why I flew from Budapest to here. You went from Budapest to Philadelphia? Yeah. To the Mike show? Yeah. All the way from Budapest? Yeah. We appreciate it. Okay. I was happy to. I had to come to the Mecca of entertainment. Thank you. It's beautiful in Budapest though, right? Yeah. Very gorgeous. You know how they pronounce it? Budapesh. Yeah, he'd never been. I'm more of a pesk than a pesk. So did it, not to harp on that, did it really bother you as a kid? The thing sometimes, you know, especially when people just make fun of you as a man or make fun of you as a black man, a large black man, and people say I sound like Asian school girl, you know? See? I was sharing a painful memory. I don't hear it. I was sharing a memory of pain. I'm so sorry. He laughed in my face. I'm so sorry. This whole group therapy thing is not a good idea. Well, you said big black man because I can't believe you weighed close to 400 pounds at one point. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Pretty close. A scone away. One thin wafer. Yeah. Oh gosh. Scone away. So again, it's tomorrow night. I'm right there with you. Saturday night and Sunday night. I am one large DQ blizzard away from knocking the wall down. You're coming with a pallet and just lift me. By the way, you two have some things in common. What else we got in common? He's very much into wrestling. Oh, I love wrestling. You've actually wrestled. I did. I wrestled. I got beat up by Dan Housen. Dan Housen was my partner. Dan Housen? Yeah. You know him? I mean, he's the reason the Knicks won the championship. Exactly. And this was years. I've been a friend of Dan Housen for years. I tried to make a cartoon with him and all the network executives were like, we don't see it, but guess what? They see it now. They see it now. Oh, they see it now. That's for sure. My gosh. Have fun at helium. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Coming right back. Midnight snack. But first, Hoagie Fest is back thanks to our sponsor Wawa. And this year it's a meal deal. Grab any shorty Hoagie, any hers chips and a fountain drink for just six bucks. Make it a classic for eight. Got to have a Wawa. Mike and Vince will give the midnight snack a try when we come right back. Now, there's no question I'm a tasty cake guy, but growing up in Kansas, it was Twinkies. I love Twinkies and it's more of a Hostess product. Sure. Well, Little Debbie or is Little Debbie the same as Hostess? I guess not. No, I think Little Debbie was. Little Debbie. Yeah, Little Debbie. Anyway, midnight snack in 15 seconds. Wait, wait, that text. I hit the first button. The feeling you remember wrapped up in a Hoagie. Same Hoagie Fest love, now a full meal. Got to have a Wawa. I can't figure this out. It's a Twinkie product. Sure. But it's called cookie dough and it looks like corn. Like little corn niblets. Well, there's only one way to find out, Mike. Pull it out, Vince. It's not as big as I thought. Oh, no. Little dough balls, like cookie doughs. You know what these look like? Captain Crunch. Yeah. Well, it's not as yellow as on the box. Okay, okay. They're hard, harder than a Twinkie, but I got to tell you, it tastes like a Twinkie. It has the consistency of a gas station antacid tablet. You've had that? It's chalky. And yes, I get heartburn frequently. I don't love it. No. Honestly, the cream is the better part of the thing. That's the great part about the Twinkie, then there is no cream. Look at this little thing. It's like a little gnocchi. Oh, yeah, a little gnocchi. A pillow of chalk. Okay, well, thanks for being with us. We had fun. You used us to pluck wood. On a scale of 1 to 12, 5. We'll see you.