00:00Your cast and crew got some sad news recently with the passing of Fred Willard.
00:04He plays the father of Steve Carell's character in the show.
00:06Why was he the perfect person to play that part?
00:09We were all really very saddened to hear that he had passed away on Friday.
00:14You know, he was a comedy legend.
00:16I mean, his work made everyone respect him, and he was a very lovable guy.
00:22Steve had worked with him on Anchorman and knew him really well.
00:26I mean, I had the wonderful experience of being on the set when he did his first work for us in the first episode.
00:35And, you know, we had written something very funny for him, I thought, and he did it brilliantly.
00:40And then, you know, he's a legendary improviser.
00:43So at the end of it, we said, well, why don't you just do one where you, you know, just do whatever you want.
00:47And he went on to this five-minute, incredibly funny story about crawling under the house, which we used, you know, completely as is in the show.
00:58And when he was done, the crew gave him a standing ovation, which is, you know, I've never seen that happen before.
01:04But everybody knew, like, how special the work was that he was doing.
01:10And, you know, he was 86 years old.
01:11So people were just so impressed.
01:13So, I mean, if there's any consolation, I guess it's that his work was the highlight of the show and it was really good.
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